


Leopards on a Limb

by lori (zakhad)



Series: Captain and Counselor [32]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Glendenning doesn't live a charmed life, but he does his best. But sometimes the past won't let him be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leopards on a Limb

. . . 'Well, calling names won't catch dinner,' said the Ethiopian. 'The long and the little of it is that we don't match our backgrounds. I'm going to take Baviaan's advice. He told me I ought to change: and as I've nothing to change except my skin I'm going to change that.'

'What to?' said the Leopard, tremendously excited.

'To a nice working blackish-brownish colour, with a little purple in it, and touches of slaty-blue. It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees.'

So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more excited than ever: he had never seen a man change his skin before.

'But what about me?' she said, when the Ethiopian had worked his last little finger into his fine new black skin.

'You take Baviaan's advice too. He told you to go into spots. . . .'

Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin you like, Best Beloved. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a little blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will see that there are always five spots -- off five black finger-tips.

'Now you are a beauty!' said the Ethiopian. 'You can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!'

'But if I'm all this,' said the Leopard, 'why didn't you go spotty too?'

'Oh, plain black's best,' said the Ethiopian. . . .

  
 -- Rudyard Kipling, How the Leopard Got Its Spots

    


~#~#~#~#~#~

'I was part of the Section.'

No. Too final -- technically, I would never be free of them. They might have left me alone for months now, but there were no guarantees that would continue. Yet I couldn't say 'I am part of the Section' -- it implied I wanted to be.

'You could say it's a family tradition.'

No. Flippant wasn't good.

Jean-Luc says I look like Thomas Glendenning -- like my father. I stared at my face in the mirror and imagined it was him. I don't like the way I've aged, but I suppose no one ever does. Those lines around my eyes make me look even older than I am.

I look tired -- why? My life hasn't been that rough in the past year. Unless you could count indentations in my shins from Beverly's toenails, and the normal wear and tear on your ordinary Starfleet captain who on occasion moves too fast for the guardian angel of starship captains and gets mangled. Beverly teases that I do it on purpose, just to have an excuse to see her while on duty.

Ah, Beverly.

I knew the rules of the game. Intimacy wasn't smart for guys like me. I'd gotten to a point that I no longer cared. A reversal for me, since I'd sworn I'd never follow my dad's example. My sisters and I had lost him before we even knew who he really was. My mom had hardly seen him in the latter half of their marriage, and he'd died before I was born. I knew all the reasons a relationship with Beverly shouldn't happen, most of them involving consideration for her feelings and her welfare, some of them considerations for Section security and for my own protection.

"Tom?"

Beverly's voice brought me back from the netherlands of my thoughts, landing me in the stark white and grey of standard issue bathroom fixtures. "Sugarmuffin?" I called, dancing into the bedroom and coming to a halt in front of her with a showy bow.

She sat on the corner of the bed, brushing her hair out, and smirked at me for resorting to buffoonery. "Pumpkinhead," she replied, mimicking my too-bright tone.

"Well, if you're going to be that way -- it's **Captain** Pumpkinhead."

"Does that make you a bigger pumpkinhead than Commander Pumpkinhead?"

"Does size matter?"

"Some day I'm going to analyze your genetic structure and isolate the Glendenning goofy gene. Bet I could get grants from your sisters' husbands and boyfriends."

I almost told her she didn't have to -- I already knew where the goofiness came from. It was my way of coping with impossible-to-resolve tension, inherited from my lovely mother, though it's probably more a matter of nurture than nature. Evidently, she hadn't figured out that pattern. But I'm trained to conceal patterns and clues. It's part of what I am.

"Are you going to wear that?" she asked, tickling my stomach.

"You don't like the natural look?" Clasping my hands behind my head, I did a passable belly dance, improvising hip-thrusts, wagging myself in her direction until she fell back laughing at my outrageousness.

"I triple-dog-dare you to do that on a table at the restaurant!"

"Naw, I only do private shows." I went for underwear and contemplated formal options -- dress uniform? That would get me an official Death Glare from Deanna. Her polite request had been civvies. Black, and I'd look like I was in uniform minus the shoulder pads. White, and I might as well wear a sign that said 'stain me.'

"What in the galaxy is taking you so long? You make us late and I'll tell them you're fussy as a woman when it comes to clothes. Fussier."

I yanked out one of her dresses, fluttered my eyelashes, and held it up. "Oh, what about this? Too much?"

"Put it back or I'll smite thee with the Hairbrush from Hell!"

I put it back. "I see the next shipboard production is Shakespearean?"

"No, it's actually going to be a musical. Wear a nice dark gray with a white shirt so we match."

"Do I have to wear the lipstick too? Or can I just dab a little foundation on and call it done? We'll be twins!"

The Hairbrush from Hell struck the floor, skating over to bump into my toe. Not quite a smiting, more of a precursor to a smiting. Before she went for a bat'leth, I drew out the dark gray semi-formal suit from the back, found a white shirt, and went about the transformation from nude wagger to suave and debonair dinner date.

She studied the end result and nodded. "You'll do."

"The honeymoon's over," I moaned, waving my hands in the air on the way out of our quarters. "I'm no longer handsome and sexy."

"Our one-year anniversary doesn't have to mean the end of the honeymoon, sweet pea."

"You aren't supposed to use icky nicknames in public." I gestured up and down the empty corridor. "What if someone heard? Crew would snicker."

She ran silent the rest of the way to the transporter room, but she goosed me in the lift. I love my Verly so, even if she wouldn't let me kiss her. Sometimes I think that's the whole reason women wear makeup.

She wore a short-skirted simple dress, the color of summer skies in Oregon -- in other words, a nice cloudy gray. My sisters liked to joke Oregon summers were three days long, as that was how much sunshine we generally got, but I'm a little more orthodox and side with the more technical aspects. Planet tilts, we got summer for three months. Beverly tilts, I get a great view.

Yes, my mind goes there a lot. I'm male and human. I'm told by a variety of non-human friends that we're peculiar that way, we residents of Terra.

We were supposed to meet the Picards. The girls had good intentions I guess, but an anniversary dinner as a community project? At least we'd part ways after eating. I had a reservation for one of the private suites on the starbase, just for a change of venue.

We met Dee in the foyer outside the restaurant called Level One, which existed in the top level of most starbases. She looked quite the vision in a vaguely-Grecian pale pink dress, gathered where it needed to be to show off a waist that shouldn't belong to a new mother. Between the Briar Patch and modern medicine she'd been spared a lot of the usual aftereffects of pregnancy. She's always been a looker; unlike a lot of women who know it, she doesn't let it go to her head. Nor does she seem to care that I look occasionally, though I'm guessing she senses it.

"Where is he?" Beverly asked, scandalized by her friend being left alone to sit on a tiny bench between a couple of Antarean fringe ferns.

"He said he forgot something."

"Well, come on, let's go sit in the bar until he gets here. How's Yves?" Beverly made tracks for the entrance. Deanna gave me an amused look and followed.

I sighed, noticed my pant leg had crept up my calf, and bent to fix it. A moment later the lift opened again. Jean-Luc stopped in front of me, a neatly-wrapped box in hand. He'd worn all black, a modern tailored suit with those popular thin lapels and buttonless front. He met my eyes coolly and waited.

"You want me to ruin the anniversary," I said, chastising. I knew exactly what his look meant. We'd had a discussion earlier in the day -- he had reminded me of my promise to discuss my involvement in the Section with Beverly.

"You've had plenty of time. The longer you wait the harder it will be."

"You couldn't tell Deanna, if our positions were reversed."

His expression told me I'd just made a tactical error. "Deanna has seen me at my absolute worst. You're not giving Beverly very much credit."

"Her husband died because of *them.* I'm doomed. You don't know how many times I've started to say it and it just -- won't -- come out!"

"You explained it to me and Will, you can explain it to her."

"This is my business, Picard," I exclaimed, resorting to ire.

I'd never seen him go cold that way before. A flicker of fury in those hazel eyes, swiftly controlled, a lunge, and it reminded me that I wasn't the only one capable of quick action -- he grabbed and shoved and the nearest wall met my back solidly. It was a good thing it wasn't the restaurant wall. I almost grabbed a fern but refrained at the last second. The plant wouldn't have helped me keep my balance, and they're expensive to replace.

"Beverly was my best friend's wife," he murmured, backing a step and removing his hand. "She's my friend. My wife's friend. My former CMO, and I owe her my life many times over. Normally I don't intrude in the personal lives of friends -- but if you do not tell her the truth, I will. She deserves to know, and if you can't tell it to her, she deserves better than you."

"So much for friendship?" It hurt more than I'd expect -- I'd let myself enjoy the man's friendship. Weak of me, that.

"You can't expect them to ignore you forever. You said that yourself. You've had a year with no contact with them, but the Briar Patch was that, and it's time to talk to her about it, before they come looking for you." His shoulders sagged. "I do consider you a friend, but you can't expect me to help you deceive her. Which is what it feels like -- Deanna feels the pressure, too."

"Tomorrow. I'll have to, I know that, but I can't ruin tonight. Which we're going to do, if we stand here much longer."

"They're in the bar," Jean-Luc said. Probably drawing on a certain metaphysical connection I'd long suspected and seen confirmed. You expect things like that from Vulcans and the like, not a human and a half-Betazoid, but I'd been finding out since I met them that nothing about this couple could be labeled ordinary.

"Nothing like a Betazoid," I muttered as we passed the smiling host and bore right through the front of the restaurant, heading for the entrance to a dimmer room. He stopped in the door, I stopped behind him, and the scene explained the halt -- the girls sat on stools at the long, black-lacquered bar, and three men had congregated on them. The postures and facial expressions, even in the faint glow of fluorescent tubes hung high overhead, told me this was a clear case of physical attraction. All three were human and probably officers from one of the ships in orbit, *Caiaphus* or possibly Shelby's *Potemkin.*

"I can handle this," Jean-Luc said, glancing back at me. "Follow my lead."

"Okay," I replied, curious as hell as to how he'd handle it without causing a scene.

He passed the group. I glanced casually at them, gathering that we weren't supposed to know them personally from Jean-Luc's avoidance, and noted that Beverly looked askance at us. Jean-Luc sat three stools from Deanna, on her right, tucking the gift into an inner pocket of his brown jacket and crossing his arms on the bar. I followed his example.

He ordered drinks. The bartender brought them quickly enough; the bar wasn't busy, as it was still early in the evening. We sat silently while the patter continued. The skinny one bothering Deanna seemed most persistent, and the broad-shouldered brunette on Bev's left seemed to be competing with the third guy for the good doctor's attention. Though #3 saw Deanna as a decent runner-up, and devoted a portion of his attention to her as well.

"So what do you do?" Scrawny asked, ending a series of questions about where she was from that had elicited scant information. "A singer, perhaps?"

"No," Deanna said. The guy had to be drunk not to hear the boredom.

The third guy, standing behind the two women, chuckled and leaned forward. "A nurse? You can take care of me any time, honey."

Jean-Luc shot me an amused look. He turned toward them slightly, which Scrawny noticed -- I saw the glance out of the corner of his eye.

"I don't think so," Deanna said. "What do you do?"

"Lieutenant-Commander Ron Davitz -- until next month anyway. Promotions coming up. I'm in line for XO on the *Caiaphus.* Ours is about to get his own ship." Oh, let's impress the lady with rank before finding out if she has any, I thought smugly. Had to be drunk. Or young and oblivious. Probably both.

Jean-Luc slid off his stool, gave me a 'come on' look, and sauntered over, his drink in hand. Scrawny and his friends stiffened and glared at him. Ignoring them, he gave Deanna a nice, long once-over. She eyed him with a raised eyebrow, the very picture of questioning royalty, sitting above eye level as she was. Gesturing casually at her with the hand that held the drink, he said one word, with mild, harmless interest.

"Sex?"

Beverly reacted with wide eyes, an incredulous silence, and a blush. The three men had gone rigid with indignation.

Deanna studied Jean-Luc offhandedly, touching his shoulder, then testing his bicep with her fingertips. Sliding down, she gave the three would-bes a sly look, took Jean-Luc's arm, and off they went.

I gave the three a look of casual disdain as Beverly took my arm and we went after the other couple. She sighed, her substitute for evil laughter until further notice. When we were seated at a table around the restaurant from the bar, under a sloping viewport overlooking *Potemkin*'s saucer section, Deanna turned to her husband with a smug smile.

"You realize the first time he tries that on some unsuspecting woman he's going to get slapped."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." His smirk said otherwise.

We chatted about any subject but the Briar Patch, sometimes obviously skirting around it, and Jean-Luc and I endured lengthy feminine segues about dresses and Colors That Look Good On You. Because that's what we do, when The Woman talks to The Woman's Friend. He didn't look bored -- he seemed to enjoy listening to their chatter, quietly giving the waiter their order and pulling the menu gently from Deanna's hand while she described something she'd purchased on Betazed. He ignored his wife's hand occasionally landing on his arm or shoulder as she spoke. A curious quirk, but they were a curious pair.

He actually laughed at a few things they said. And while he sat with chin in hand openly watching her speak, I felt like an outsider. Beverly seemed as interested in their discussion of the softest type of silk as Deanna.

I couldn't worship Verly so raptly, with the Section sitting between us. I understood at last the fullness of that metaphor of the Picards -- elephants. Those things that sit between us like walls, that both of us know are there but find impossible to talk about. Only Beverly didn't know yet that the elephant existed. He had his big wrinkly posterior sitting firmly in my lap.

The turnabout came after dessert, when Jean-Luc asked about repairs on my ship. We swapped details and future destinations; as usual, they had a fresh crop of cadets for him, and a couple of diplomatic missions. I was supposed to be heading back to where I'd been when the Briar Patch intervened. Deanna had little to contribute because she was on baby leave, no longer actively participating in ship operations, and seemed to droop as the discussion progressed. Finally Beverly reached across the table and took her hand. Jean-Luc noticed, and his hand dropped from the back of Deanna's chair to her bare shoulder.

"Don't," she murmured, shooting him a sideways glance.

"For heaven's sake, what's wrong, Dee?" Beverly asked. "He's just concerned."

We waited, and Deanna excused herself after a moment of nearly going cross-eyed with the effort to not cry. Jean-Luc watched her go, shook his head, and picked up his fork to stab at the remains of dessert.

"Jean-Luc?" Beverly worried too much about her friends. But it was the same worry that had landed me against a wall with Jean-Luc threatening disclosure if I didn't take care of it. Again, I felt like an outsider.

"Her replacement bothers her. It's Dee's job, and she hates watching someone else do it 'wrong.'" He put the word in quotes with his fingers.

"Who is it? Carlisle?"

"No. They sent in a commander who's slated to get her own ship shortly. Ship's still in the yards so she requested active duty somewhere, and ended up with me. Imagine Jellico in a bra, and that's about what I've got for a first officer."

"Now, there's an image that'll give you nightmares," I exclaimed. I remembered Jellico too well. Did I mention I used to do surveillance for the Section? No? It wasn't fun.

"You should talk her into seeing the counselor -- don't you realize this might be post-partum depression?"

Jean-Luc eyed Beverly. "It's not about the baby."

"That you know. Of course she'd attribute her depression to the frustrations of watching someone else do the job she worked herself to exhaustion to get. She probably feels guilty for -- "

"Beverly, stop," Jean-Luc said, chiding her gently. "It's not that complicated."

"She's a woman, a mother, and I know how that feels," Beverly exclaimed, suddenly near tears herself. "I know how it feels to attempt balance between a mother's responsibilities and a career. Pulled one way and the other every five minutes, never quite sure you're doing the right thing, and afraid that you'll do permanent damage to your relationship with your child."

"Beverly. Stop."

Jean-Luc was going to make a fantastic father. The quiet insistence cut into her rising hysteria neatly and left her staring at him. He waited for a response.

"I wish it could have been different," she said, and I knew I'd vanished from the room -- this was part of an ongoing conversation between two old friends. The last segment of that conversation might have taken place years before, but it may as well have been yesterday.

It brought the whole untidy mess of my emotions to an unbearable, sharp point, and before I knew it I'd stood up. Following the former counselor wasn't my intent but I ran into her just the same, pacing in circles in the foyer. She stopped, hugging herself, looking less like a goddess than like a very tired Betazoid with pain pooling in her eyes.

"So what's the replacement's name?" I winced at the first question that popped into my head and off my lips. But she answered without tears or ire.

"Maven."

"Oh, shit, you've got to be kidding," I blurted. "Hey, it could be a lot worse -- at least you won't have to worry about her stealing your husband!"

She smiled, but ducked her head. "No. Or my job. She's only been aboard a couple of days, and people are already giving me that pleading look and asking exactly how much leave I'll be taking."

"So this is post-partum depression talking?"

She sighed heavily. "I don't know. I have an appointment with the counselor tomorrow. I've been so tired, and I haven't even been working. I honestly don't know how I'll manage it when I do go back to work. He's not even old enough to do much more than cry."

"When you're recovered from the little mess in the Briar Patch and the newborn baby thing, you'll feel better. My sisters went through this, one at a time, and sent me nice long monologues about it. Chloe suffered six months of emotional roller coaster. I don't think you'll be unreasonable if you take a month or so to really roll with the mood. At least you've got Mr. Steady Nerve to lean on, hm?"

A more genuine smile. "Thanks, Tom. I just know what Jean-Luc's going through with Maven, he comes home with it every night. He misses having me working with him. I miss being there, but I wanted the leave too."

I knew she sensed things, but it impressed me all over again that she and her captain could make their relationship work so well. Being unable to escape his stress and emotional feedback hadn't occurred to me as a byproduct of being an empath. I had been underestimating her for a while. She raised her eyes to mine as I thought it, and her smile grew.

"Yes, you make me nervous," I said. "Damned empath. But, you know, I understand how he puts up with it? How thoroughly you know him, and you can love him anyway. Wish I could have that."

A scowl creased her forehead. "I don't see why you couldn't. Beverly would. If you'd tell her the whole truth -- you know, the way you feel right now should be your first clue that you're not the horrible person you feel like you are. You have a conscience and you regret it -- you're in an untenable position, and you're adding to it yourself by making it all much more difficult than it is. She may be angry, yes, she may be unwilling to sit and listen for very long, but once she gets it out of her system. . . ."

"I know. I should tell her, but I plan to do it when it's not our anniversary."

She accepted that, and I held myself carefully in check, maintaining the same tension, not wanting to relax -- otherwise, she'd sense my relief that she hadn't dug any deeper than that. We went back to our table together. Jean-Luc sat up straighter and followed Deanna's movements as she returned to his side; she looked him in the eye, smiling affectionately, and something unspoken passed between them. He slid his arm around her and she leaned close. The glow she'd lost returned now that she was with him.

I dropped into my chair and smiled at Verly. She gave me a curious look that I had no chance to answer.

"Captain." That stiff, chilly high tenor, like a young man who couldn't quite shake puberty -- I remembered it so well. She'd beat me to valedictorian by a narrow margin and I'd sat in the back row hating every word of her pompous glorious-Federation speech.

The four of us looked up. I don't think Maven ever gets out of that uniform. Her hair had to be glued in that functional little bun -- it reminded me of the last time I'd seen Janeway, when I'd teased her about being a schoolmarm. Unlike Janeway, Maven didn't have a sense of humor.

"Why, if it isn't Maven the Marvelous," I crowed, dropping an arm across Beverly's shoulders. "How's that left hook? And that shot put -- by God, you were a stunning sight on the field! You know, Jean-Luc, this is the woman who won three wrestling trophies as a soph?"

Maven doesn't do a death glare nearly as sweetly dire as Deanna -- she could scorch you right through a bulkhead. Beverly gave her a polite smile and turned a scolding one on me. I knew what she wanted to say. 'Don't do this to me.' But, this hun had made Deanna weepy-eyed. There's a soft spot in me for big feminine weepy eyes, and the Big Brother instinct lives on, in spite of the fact that I was a little brother. And Deanna likes me in spite of all the momentary leerings I've sent her way. And I like torturing pretentious martinets.

"Captain Glendenning. How nice to see you again," Maven said flatly.

"So how's the temporary job? Captain Picard's been telling Beverly and I about how well you're doing." That part, I made as sincere as I could. No sense in mixing in his real opinion and making life difficult for him.

"It's an honor to serve aboard the flagship," she replied, as if reciting 'the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain' -- she was as excited as she'd be about rain in Spain, anyway.

"Marvelous opportunity for you. Some good officers aboard her, too. Did Elena suggest it? She's thoughtful that way."

At the mention of our sainted Fleet Admiral, Maven's head tilted, reminding me of Data in 'mildly-interested' mode. "Admiral Nechayev said the opening needed to be filled. I volunteered."

"She's always liked Jean-Luc," I said, glancing at him. The look in his eye rivaled the coldness rising off Maven.

"Some of us do not consider 'liking' an officer as a possible motivation for duty assignments," Maven replied. I wondered if she'd been taking Vulcan lessons somewhere.

My body likes to behave out of turn. I was standing before I knew it. Hands at my sides, I eyed her with my best predatory look. She returned my steady gaze with those limpid cesspools of hers, and her mouth twitched.

"Commander."

"Captain," she returned, just as blandly.

"Do you have a purpose for interrupting an off-duty private party?"

"I only wished to greet an old acquaintance. Auld lang syne. It has been too long since Antilles."

If someone had breathed on me, I might have fallen over at that instant between the coldly-casual delivery of my Section identifier and my rebound from the shock of hearing it from someone so stringently by the book you could hear the crinkle of her starched undergarments. Agents picked a place we'd never been, a phrase in the language of our choice, and our own countersign. It's how we know another agent's been sent by HQ. Mine were Antilles and auld lang syne. I debated not giving the countersign.

"That's a matter of opinion. I'd rather forget Antilles."

"As I thought you might. Have a good evening." And the chosen response to the countersign, meaning she stalked off to wait in the bar, where I was supposed to meet her within a short period of time.

"You know that woman?" Beverly asked, disbelieving.

"Yes, not that I enjoy it." I sat again, not wanting to attract attention. The restaurant was only half-full. My agent's instincts were quickly coming to the fore, studying my surroundings from a Section point of view. Risk analysis. It had being a public place in its favor. Being shot wasn't likely.

"Tom?" Beverly hadn't noticed the knowing looks on Deanna's and Jean-Luc's faces. Both of them stared at me as if they knew exactly what had happened. Deanna, I realized. The damned empath rides again. She'd had years of practice at interpreting emotional reactions to things.

Beverly's eyes clouded up fast, threatening hail and lightening if I didn't fess up soon. I glanced out the viewport, over my shoulder, over the shoulders of the Picards, off to the right at the expanse of gray carpet between us and the tables opposite, and sized up my chances of not being heard. Then I turned to look at her again, the words tasting bad before they ever left my lips. This was not a good place. The worst timing I could have chosen. But it had to be done, and I had no idea whether I'd be coming back from this meeting.

"That was an identifier, a code. I gave the countersign. I'm going to meet her in the bar. Since I have no idea how this will turn out, I want you to know that I'd give anything to change how I got to where I am for you -- but I have to dance to the drummer a while longer, at least. I'm sorry, Verly, because I know you deserve a lot better than this, but my hands are tied just as they've been all along when it comes to the Section." As I rose, I saw her flinch at the mention of it, but allowed myself no hesitation, kissing her cheek and turning away before I could let my feelings pull me back to my chair.

The three guys were long gone. The bartender loitered behind the bar, playing some sort of game on a padd, or maybe inventorying liquor with fancy sound effects. He did a double-take, probably because he'd seen me leave with the redhead, and his glance at the back told me where I'd probably find Maven. No one sat in the booths or at the tables. There was a door in the corner, likely meant to be 'employees only' but it opened as I approached.

I walked in to find Maven and Admiral Nechayev, standing in the middle of a large supply closet, surrounded by racks and shelves bearing boxes of liquor from all over the quadrant.

One gets used to the idea that weird and unexpected comes with the uniform, but a fleet admiral in a closet in the back of a bar? It took me a while to pick up my chin -- and before that, even, I glanced around, noting that there were far too many places to hide surveillance equipment.

"Captain," Nechayev began. I held up my hand. With a quick twist and shake of the arm, I took the small phased-pulse taser from the concealed pocket in my right sleeve and sent it clattering across the floor. It came to rest at the foot of the shelving to my left, still in sight but out of easy reach.

"You're next."

Both women stared at the weapon as if I'd tossed an adder at them. By this time, adrenalin and well-trained reflexes had me ready for anything. Nechayev turned an angry demanding look on Maven, who removed a taser from her boot and tossed it after mine. That was what I had wanted -- confirmation. The little gems, barely eight centimeters long and mostly energy cell with two prongs on the end, were standard Section issue. You could knock out most humanoids with it and leave no traces of the cause of unconsciousness; the shock's impact on the nervous system would fade to nothing in just a few hours. If Maven had anything else, she might've been just another officer in the know. This meant Nechayev might be a security breach. Picard had told her about our little crusade to do away with the Section, and here she was with a Section agent.

But, it appeared the taser in Maven's boot was a surprise. She stiffened and even leaned away from the commander. "Where did you get that?"

Maven glanced at me. No longer supercilious -- this was a veiled appeal for support. Officers weren't supposed to carry weapons. Only on dangerous away missions, or when circumstances warranted it. So maybe Nechayev *didn't* know Maven was an agent. Or. . . . Aha, said a small voice in the back of my head.

"Why are we here, Admiral?" I exclaimed, crossing my arms and posturing indignantly.

"Commander, why did you have that device?" she asked, ignoring me.

"Because she's a Section agent like me, all right? Why the hell are we here? I'm on leave, dammit!"

Maven stared at me now as if I'd pissed on the shrine to The Goddess of Starched Shorts Martinets. More proof of my assumption, perhaps. A real Section agent wouldn't show emotional reactions that way.

Nechayev snapped around to glare at me. "What are you playing at, Glendenning?"

"Don't know what you mean -- Ma'am." She hates that. She won't tell you not to do it, but she has this urge to hit people who do -- I know, because her right hand twitches like she's not making the fist she wants to.

"I've never trusted you, you're a two-faced bastard with an axe to grind. The logs, *Captain,* your logs, regarding the situation in the Briar Patch -- where's the detail? You have a bargain to fulfill, remember?"

"I told you everything I could. What makes you think I know everything about the Section's motives? If every agent knew every detail of every action we'd all be a security risk, wouldn't we? Stop looking at me like I'm selling your mother, Crystal."

Maven blushed deep red at that. She always went by her surname, no matter what. We had that in common, the official name change -- mine from Geraint to Thomas, for my father's sake, and hers simply removed from her records because she couldn't stand the name her folks gave her. Got to admit, thinking of her as 'crystal' is like thinking of Nechayev as 'pansy.'

"Admiral, you didn't say anything about knowing he was Section," Maven exclaimed. She glanced at the taser she'd tossed down as if contemplating going after it. Clumsy. It further proved my theory. You never let anyone see you looking. I knew exactly where my weapon was and how to use it. I wouldn't go after it, I'd use it as bait if I had to and take out the victim as he dove for what he perceived as an advantage.

How had she known my sign?

"You didn't say anything about being Section," Nechayev shot back, highly offended.

"Sir, you said you wanted to speak to Captain Glendenning and for me to persuade him to come -- I took the necessary measures to do so. If making him believe I was Section -- "

"Careful you don't snap your spine doing those backflips, Maven. You knew my specific sign and countersign." If she wanted to be Section, I'd make her dreams come true. "I don't like this," I growled, striding forward and glaring at her. "You're a security risk."

"You've gone mad," she blurted, scurrying backward.

"Nope. You just committed the unpardonable sin. You admitted what you were in front of an admiral."

"I'm not Section!"

"Well, it's about time you started denying it. Too little too late, though."

"Traitor," she shouted, losing her cool.

"Oh, right," I said, snorting, when she glanced again at the weapon, just a sidelong dart of an eye. "You go right ahead and jump for that weapon. You'll be dead on the floor before you touch it. You don't trust anyone, not even another agent, unless you're both assigned to the same mission. A screwup like this is fatal, Maven. The Section won't trust you once you've made a mistake like this."

"You're blowing smoke -- you wouldn't kill me," she exclaimed, cold and defiant. "Not in front of -- "

"Try me," I murmured seductively.

It came to one of those standoffs in which everyone stands around trying to stare each other into surrender. Maven kept glancing at the admiral. I glared at Nechayev.

"Are we done with this game yet? She's no agent. Where did you get my -- " But they wouldn't tell me where they got my countersign. Not that it mattered. Furiously, the neurons worked, and the equation could only be solved for x one way. I'd told only one person everything. My hand-picked first officer, whose android qualities and whose training in ethics under Mr. Fleet Idealist himself would serve my purposes well. He had sworn himself to secrecy and encrypted my logs and stored them all away in a portion of his neural net, to be accessed only in the event of a direct order from me or my death, and passed on to a handful of people -- the top name on the list was Jean-Luc Picard. Data had to have jumped the gun a little and given just that bit to the good captain, just my sign and countersign, in the interests of proving I could be trusted -- and I'd lectured him long and hard over not trusting anyone who knew the Section existed. It would be so like him to turn around and apply that to me. Jean-Luc in turn had given the sign to the admiral, or Maven.

I didn't trust that guess, however. I had to know if Jean-Luc was in on this. He probably was, but I had to prove it to myself.

I got the feeling that the last thing they expected was for me to spank my comm badge and contact someone else. Maven and Nechayev whirled at the sound of the link opening.

"Glendenning to Picard."

"Yes, Tom?"

"So, now that Maven's dead and the Admiral's unconscious, why don't you come join me?"

Muttered swearing. "You'd better not have -- "

"Tell me something that will make me believe I'm making a mistake in assuming 31's behind this, or the admiral's going with Maven." I'd lied about Maven, but I wasn't lying about this. Though I'd be dead or in prison as a result, I would do away with both the women in front of me, if only to protect Jean-Luc's project.

Another pause. Deanna's voice, faintly. "Jean-Luc."

"You can't get around my training. I'm a walking, talking bullshit detector with plenty of justified paranoia. I don't like manipulation and double-crossing. Someone walks up to me in a restaurant and starts throwing around countersigns, there's something wrong. I can't afford screwups, and I don't like the implications of this -- I'm not going to let my friends suffer because some greenie 31er gets planted on their ship."

"She's not what you think, Tom," Picard said wearily. "Can you appreciate why we would have to know what you would do, with some certainty? Can you understand why even your friends would be concerned?"

"Whose idea was this?" The rising anger notwithstanding, I knew he had just cause. I'd told him repeatedly to take nothing for granted, just like I'd told Data.

"I didn't like the deception, but the admiral holds the deciding vote in these matters, Tom. I'm sorry. But she's correct that the success of our mission depends upon our ability to trust one another."

At least now I knew why he'd wanted me to tell Bev, to the point of throwing me against a wall. He hadn't wanted her to find out the way she had. I felt like striking out, throwing things, indulging in a rage of monstrous proportions. Doing it as they had was a kindness on their parts, one could say -- they hadn't done it on my own ship and risked exposing me to the whole crew. At the time, however, I wanted to bust the place up and aim most of the furniture at Nechayev.

"Fine. So am I cleared? Did I pass?"

"Since you didn't really kill Maven, yes. I suggest you get going, Dr. Crusher has already left the restaurant. Don't try to manipulate me again. Picard out."

"Damn Betazoid and her damn sensor array," I muttered, knitting my fingers and cupping them over the top of my head. The muscles in my shoulders were still tight, but the adrenalin was on the wane. Weariness started to drag at me. "Admiral?"

"I'm content to leave things as they are, for the moment." It took a moment for me to realize she meant my ship. I'd gotten *Venture* as a mutual back-patting gesture from her. An unsolicited one. That and she had a dearth of seasoned captains out there, since the war and various Borg incursions had eaten away at the ranks. It was hard to say which held more weight in the decision, but I knew she would've rather given me something else.

"Sir?" Maven asked.

"You are dismissed, Commander, and thank you for your help."

Maven left without a backward glance. The closet door slid shut. I crossed my arms and did my best to appear unruffled.

"You confronted me without considering the consequences. I could have killed her and it would've been your fault. Don't provoke me again."

"You don't like Maven, do you?"

"That isn't the point. I don't kill needlessly. If I were any other Section agent you'd be on a table in a lab having your short term memory wiped."

"But you're not. That was the point of the exercise. Congratulations, you've vindicated the faith your friends have in you. Your first officer found the entire proceeding pointless, and the Picards disliked it the instant I suggested it. So go back to what you were doing and keep in touch. Our original arrangement still stands, but with the modification of this new mutual goal of ours, I believe it will be much friendlier, don't you agree?" She spoke with forced cheer. Her attempt at civil conciliation confused me.

She's known about my side career in covert ops for years. I don't know to this day how she found out what I was, but since then she's hated me quite lividly. I can't even figure that out -- I'd done nothing to warrant such antipathy other than being Section. I kept my nose clean while out on official Starfleet business, so she had nothing with which to hang me. This new tactic of hers made me suspicious.

I almost asked where she'd gotten her information on me. How she knew I'd been Section in the first place. But, I didn't. Nothing is the best thing to say when you're uncertain.

"I agree, Admiral. Until next time."

She nodded stiffly and left me there. I gave it another five minutes, then strode from the bar, ignoring the bartender's curious stare.

I didn't try to rejoin the Picards. I left the restaurant and wondered what to do, where to go -- Beverly was gone already. Imagining to where, and what she'd be doing, made me want to cry, damn it. I wandered through the starbase thither and yon, thinking and hating and doing everything but acknowledging that I'd lost her for good. I didn't want to believe that, and trying to own up to it made my eyes prickle and my throat seize. A full hour later I realized the aimless walking around wasn't going to help. Rather than going to the ship to find her methodically packing her things as she composed her resignation as CMO of *Venture*, I went to the suite I'd rented, intending to torture myself in full for what I'd done to her.

I went in slow, pulling off my clothes, the gift I'd had tucked in the jacket pocket

almost falling on the floor. I caught it and tossed it and the weapons on the broad sea-green sofa facing out toward space. The view in this room was as spectacular as the one from Level One; just one level down and huge viewports along the wall.

Sitting on the massive bed, an island of white in the green-and-gold room, I shucked my shoes and leaned, elbows to knees, contemplating the dark green carpet. There's something about a big room when you're alone. Especially a big room that you'd expected to fill with laughter and wild fun with someone you love.

No joy here. The silence begged for something, anything, a shout, a sob. Swearing. I'd been here before -- alone, at the end of something big. Mission concluded, all the other participants had gone home, and Thomas Geraint Glendenning sat on the end of a bed in his usual, solitary fashion. This time was different. I knew the loneliness would kill me.

I've been in love a few times but never like this. I'd loved Beverly the instant she spilled her guts to me that night so long ago -- we'd both been so lonely for so long that I sometimes wondered if it were only that holding us together. I don't wonder it any more. She's the best friend I've ever had. And that was something I owed to Picard and his wife. I didn't set out to consciously emulate them. It's more complicated than that.

I couldn't afford close friends. That's what I kept telling myself, until I ran into Picard. The whole Shelby thing had been a favor for Gaines. I'd issued an open invite to the captains in orbit, and to the admiral, and ended up in that Rigellian bar in a back room where Craig Bellamy already loitered. Bellamy was as close to a good friend as I had but only because of shared ties; we'd been classmates and competitors. The friendship no longer included any real comradery -- we were familiar to each other, we didn't have to pretend we didn't know things like the Section existed, and that was about all that tied us together. Inviting other captains along was my way of fulfilling an obligation to visit with an old friend while keeping Bellamy from talking about things I didn't want to discuss with him any more.

And then Picard showed up with Gaines, out of uniform and toting a bottle of rotgut. Bellamy and I were both startled by the appearance of a well-respected captain and an admiral in such an atmosphere. Picard was there to help Shelby, and at the behest of his counselor, too. The last thing you'd think is that Picard would be willing to look like a drunk to help a counselor do her job.

And then it came clear when something he said hinted at it -- he was sleeping with his counselor. The rumor I'd heard was true. So that was the motivation I decided was likely, he was helping his lover out with a difficult patient. The great Captain Picard had a weakness.

It only hit me the following day, after recovering from my drunken stupor. He'd not just done it for a lover. There had to be more to it than just that. His demeanor after Shelby left with the counselor told me as much. When you're trained to notice nuances, you do it whether you're sober or not. What I could remember from before going totally blotted told me he'd not been there just for a lover. Between Craig and I we'd roasted the guy liberally. He showed discomfort, but calmly turned away the barbs we hurled, either with stony looks or calm responses, or even the occasional smirk.

I went to Gaines for more of an explanation. He's one of the admirals the Section has under its sway, though not actually a member. I knew it from how he behaved and how little he knew. That meant he'd not met Section standards. I could see why -- the man was all bluster and worry over Picard's relationship with Troi, and probably couldn't keep things to himself if given a high-powered containment field. I took the guise of Mr. Bad Boy Section Agent and instructed him to quit hyperventilating about it -- and definitely not to do it in front of anyone else, or he'd only make the problem worse. One of Gaines' main complaints was that Picard didn't care who knew about him and the counselor, nor did he care what effect that would have on other fleet personnel.

The admiral had a point. Picard didn't care what people thought. But I saw it differently than Gaines, and hoping to prove a theory I spent a day lurking about the city to which most Starfleet personnel wandered when on leave on Rigel. I was rewarded by chancing across the couple, walking together down a crowded street. He seemed more relaxed than in the bar and smiled and chatted with her as they went along, eating some native thing he'd picked up from a street vendor. As I followed at a distance and blended as only a good undercover man could, he held it out for her to nibble. They stopped in front of a window and looked at the things on display, and laughed over something. He let her have the last bite of the food item, tossed the wrapper in a nearby receptacle, and she said something that made him stop in mid-turn and look at her soberly. He drew his thumb along her cheek from nose to ear, so swiftly that if I hadn't been watching I wouldn't have seen. They walked away, leaving me to remember the expressions on their faces.

I couldn't forget that incident. The thought of a captain of that caliber and dedication having an officer with whom he could relax and be himself, that's what stuck with me. They could've been any two people who knew each other to the point of complete comfort, except for that little caress. The dress and the demeanor in the bar -- all a performance. They'd shown little of their real selves in it.

Months later, after long nights of trying to stop thinking about it, I saw them again. On Romulus, both of them decked out like Roms -- so was I, though I had the look and smell of a street rat rather than their costumes of professional performing artists. I saw the same closeness. And armed with the extensive backgrounds of both officers with which I was provided prior to the mission, I knew better who they were and why they were there -- their personal motivations, not orders, I mean. I saw them work together as halves of a very efficient team, presenting the appearance of Romulans, even altering body language for the occasion. Picard submerged himself in the role to a startling degree. Somehow you expect someone with a personality so solid and dignified to not be able to set it aside that way.

And then they submerged themselves in the roles again on the holodeck, for Riker and Beverly. They left immediately after a repeat of their performance of the Romulan dance they'd done while undercover, and I noticed Deanna pause and stare at me before she followed Jean-Luc off the holodeck. Just until I noticed her solemn, half-accusing look that I couldn't decipher.

Then the wedding. I'd begun to question my sanity in leaping into a relationship with Beverly -- but the way she kept watching her friends then looking at me all aglow, staying close to me most of the time. . . . I decided I didn't care. I knew how Picard must have felt in the earlier stages of his relationship with Deanna. I knew why he'd fought so hard for it.

Picard and his wife. His first officer. I wasn't sure which hat she wore more often, or if it mattered any more. They worked together well enough that I wondered if that weren't a deception in itself. No relationship is that perfect.

They were people I thought of as friends. I had friends, where I'd had none before, even if they occasionally made me feel like an outsider. But best of all I had Beverly.

I loved her, and I shouldn't. I wanted what Picard had and knew the pain of understanding that no sane woman would knowingly stay with a man like me. I'd suffered numerous panic attacks in the year we'd been together, whenever I'd thought of her reaction if I told her about the Section. Each time I came close to doing it I chickened out. I'd been paranoid in the beginning about her finding out somehow -- slim chance, but not absent.

But now she knew.

I pulled off my jacket; the slight weight of the comm badge bumped my thigh, and I took it out of the pocket. Rubbing my thumb up the edge of the parabola, around the point, and down, I tossed and caught it, then pitched it across the room with an arm that had once thrown footballs across fields. I heard the solid crack of it hitting the opposite wall. There would be no calling her in a moment of weakness. I didn't want to interrupt her packing.

I landed on my back in the fluffy cover, arms wide, and closed my eyes. I needed a drink. Romulan ale, or something stronger. Something to take the edge off the mourning.

A voice interrupted me in the depths of my musings. "Captain Glendenning."

I was off the bed in a second, legs apart, shrugging and readying myself for anything. The intruder stood three meters from me, his back to the viewport, looking at me with the most Vulcan face I'd ever seen on a human. He wore civvies too nondescript to be anything but a disguise. The calm knowing in his brown eyes, paired with the silent and unexpected appearance in my room, told me he was Section.

"Who are you?"

He smiled, more friendly than I would've expected. "You know who I am, Thoth."

Suddenly, I did.

~^~^~^~^~

 

Drifting up from the depths of slumber, Deanna took slow inventory of her body and recognized two things simultaneously. Jean-Luc was already awake -- that was normal. Her right hand was conformed to a certain portion of his anatomy, also very awake in its own way -- her hand's location was likely his doing, considering the tenor of what she sensed from him.

She smiled, though her mouth didn't seem to cooperate very well. Her habit of waking up tired continued. The last time she'd been awake, four hours ago according to the chron, she'd almost sleepwalked her way to the crib to comfort their crying baby. "Start without me, Jean-Fish. I'll catch up to you."

He was on her in a second, caressing and kissing tentatively, and within the brief span of time it took her to finish waking up and begin to reciprocate, Yves screamed. The distant wail carried through their quarters quite well.

"You didn't warn me that celibacy was part of the package," he growled, leaping out of bed.

"It's a habit of human children to do this to their parents, I've heard."

"Just human children?" He could be so defensive when he was peevish.

"Betazoids take a more practical approach. We have a friend help out when necessary."

He shoved his arms into a robe. "You don't take care of your own newborns?"

"Who said anything about helping with the baby?"

It took him almost a full minute to understand she was teasing. At least it made him smile a little, though the crossness remained. "You stay put. Don't fall asleep."

"I'll be here, don't worry," Deanna said as she yawned. He hurried to the nursery. While he was gone, she stretched and thought hopeful thoughts, noting that Yves was hungry and wet. Jean-Luc's ire dwindled as he tended their son's needs.

Yves knew only comfort and discomfort, wet and dry, warm and cool, hungry and full, and the limited perception he had of his parents. He liked being held and the faces of people were fascinating, but he liked Maman and Papa best. Betazoid bonding had resulted in his near-instinctual identification of his parents. Not that he knew what it meant. He knew only that they were part of his existence in a way no one else was, and comforted him on a different level than babysitters or 'aunts' or 'uncles.'

From Deanna's perspective, the bond kept her abreast of everything that her son felt. A running awareness at the periphery of her empathy, that with a thought could be more. For Jean-Luc the bond with Yves was something he worked hard at and never quite attained consciously. There was something there, Deanna knew, similar to the earlier stages of hajira -- almost subconscious and not controllable, but still more than any human should be capable of. But that was her Jean-Fish, exceeding expectations as always.

Her badge chirped. At first she thought it was Jean-Luc's, but at the second chirp she noticed it came from her side of the bed and reached for it. "Troi here."

"Deanna," came a familiar, breathless voice.

"Beverly?"

"I need your help. I don't want to intrude, but if you have the time. . . ."

Since she already knew what this was about, Deanna understood why Bev felt so despondent. {Jean, Bev's contacted me and wants to talk.}

At once he came to attention. {Go talk to her. Don't worry about Yves, I'll take care of him.}

{You're supposed to go on duty shortly.}

{Let Maven handle things.} As little as he liked that idea, it only reaffirmed the depth of his concern for their friend. {Beverly took forever to recover from Jack's death. This has shocked her almost as deeply. If she's asking for help that's what you should give her, before she closes herself completely and regresses into her old coping mechanisms.}

"Of course I have the time," Deanna said, glad the mental conversations with Jean-Luc took less time than spoken ones. "Where are you?"

"I don't mean right this minute. You can't even be out of bed yet, you never get up before you have to." Beverly felt suddenly awkward, Deanna sensed. In her distress she'd forgotten current sleeping arrangements.

"Yves woke us up a bit ago. Jean-Luc's taking care of him. We can meet for breakfast. You name the place."

"I'm in my -- our quarters, on the Venture. Tom. . . never came back last night."

"I'll be there shortly."

Getting ready took little time. Jean-Luc came in while she put on makeup and stood behind her. "How does she sound?"

"Maintaining composure, but only barely. Fasten this?"

She held her hair out of his way as he worked the clasp on her necklace. The silver swan pendant saw a lot of use since she'd gone on extended leave. He kissed the nape of her neck, making her shiver. Rising, she pivoted and put her arms around him from behind. Rather than put up the usual token fight, he stood that way, wishing.

"I'll make it up to you," she murmured against the back of his neck.

"You should go."

"Do me a favor. Check on Tom, and just. . . I don't know, see what frame of mind he's in?"

"In a while. He's probably doing about as well as Beverly."

She left their quarters reluctantly and beamed over. The location of the captain's quarters were a matter of preference; Tom had chosen a large suite on deck six. The doors opened seconds after she pressed the annunciator.

Beverly didn't look at her face and stood back quickly to let her in. "What do you want to eat?"

"Some fruit would be fine." A faint smell of peach lingered in the air, tickling her nose. Beverly led her to the set table, then veered toward the replicator.

"Coffee?"

"Sure. I like mine blond, with sugar." Jean had teased her about liking blonds, based on the amount of cream she liked in her coffee. Beverly brought two steaming mugs and sat across from her, setting them down carefully, and finally, Deanna saw her face. "You've been crying a lot."

Beverly put a hand to her forehead, propped that elbow on the table, and closed her bloodshot eyes. She cleared her throat. "Yes."

Deanna scooped a segment of grapefruit. She would have preferred something Betazoid, but her human friends usually replicated what was familiar to them. Beverly tore a croissant in half; Deanna smiled at her choice of pastry and reached for the one on her plate. They ate in silence, but the turmoil beneath Beverly's composure continued unabated.

"You love him," Deanna said at last, setting aside the plate of crumbs and empty rind.

"How could he do this to me?" Her voice rippled with the unshed tears Deanna knew were imminent. "How could he just dump that on me and not even bother to come home? They killed Jack. I want to hate Tom, so much, for turning out to be one of *them,* for not coming home --" She choked on it and struggled for words.

"What will you do?"

At that, she put her hands over her face. Shoulders hunched, Beverly retreated into whatever place the despondent go, trying to find her way.

"Beverly," Deanna prompted gently. Since it didn't work, she shook her friend's arm. "Beverly."

"I don't -- know," she whispered, as if it was the hardest thing to admit.

"That's all right. You can be confused. Did you try finding him?"

"I thought about it, all night. I was going to tell him -- I wanted to resign. I even started rehearsing it."

"Come over to the couch and sit down." They left the breakfast dishes and moved to the sofa. Deanna left a considerable amount of space between them and patted the cushion. Beverly eyed it, distracted from her despondency, and shook her head.

"It's going to take more than your counseling tricks to do any good."

"Don't sell me too short, or you'll have to go back and re-do some of my old performance reviews. Who would you want to be sitting here? What person do you think would be able to make you feel better, just by being here?"

While she thought about it, Deanna went for a clean washcloth, wetting it at the bathroom sink. The peach smell was worse in here. She wrinkled her nose and returned to her friend.

Beverly welcomed the cloth, holding it against her eyes for a long time. "Tom," she said at last.

"Why would he make you feel better?"

"Because -- he does."

"Because you love him."

She curled her legs under her and laughed wearily. "He hates anything that smells perfumey or has lace. A phobia he developed having four older sisters who loved the stuff."

"So?"

"He doesn't know I hate peach. He got me a silk gown that color, and peach bubble bath. When I got here last night I had my whole resignation speech planned. I wasn't going to cry, or cave in, or. . . ." She dabbed at her eyes again with the washcloth. "But I saw the gifts and it reminded me of everything I love about him. I cried so hard I thought I'd pop a rib."

Deanna let her sit for a moment, then said, "You don't want to stay with him because he's in the Section. Even though that affiliation isn't something he wants, and he's actively seeking a way out of it."

"It's so dangerous," she whispered.

"Starfleet is safe now?"

Beverly heaved a great, slow sigh. "How did I know you were going to say that? It's not the same. They'll betray and kill anyone, if they think a person is a threat. The Briar Patch situation, whatever it really was, had something to do with them. I was so afraid when we first got the order from Ross -- just the way the orders were worded told me it was unusual. Tom's reaction scared me. Now I'm going to see the Section every time we get classified orders. I'll see agents where I should see crewmates. I won't be able to sleep when he goes off the ship for any length of time."

"He could let you know it's just another routine mission before he goes. You trust him, that isn't the issue -- you just don't trust the Section."

"I don't know if I trust him or not. I change my mind every few minutes." Beverly looked up at Deanna, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "You trust him or you would have warned me to begin with."

As she had many times before, Deanna debated telling what she knew, and what she deduced from all she sensed about someone. It didn't take her long to decide otherwise. "I do trust him. Jean-Luc was certain of him. He's always liked Tom."

"They're alike in some ways."

Deanna thought not, but said nothing. "Are you going to give him the chance? Talk it through with him before you decide to leave or not? I think you should at least tell him you don't like peach."

She got up and began pacing, running her fingers through her hair. "I suppose you're going to tell me that you'd do that, if you were the one in this situation?"

"Jean-Luc knows what kind of bubble bath to get me."

Beverly straightened her beige tunic, rearranging the loose collar as if it had suddenly become uncomfortable. "I'll bet. He probably knows everything he needs to know, thanks to the bond."

Surprise paralyzed her for a few seconds. "The bond," Deanna echoed, not quite asking.

"Hajira. I'd think you of all people would know." Beverly smirked. Jean-Luc must have said something.

"It doesn't tell him what kind of bubble bath I like. There is no substitute for talking things out, Beverly. If you don't discuss your feelings with Tom, you're being as unfair to him as he's been to you in not telling you sooner about his affiliation with the Section. How you feel about being in love with a man who is also a Section 31 agent is not something you should ignore. It won't go away, and the harder you try to suppress it the more difficulty you will have."

"All right! Counselor!" she shouted, pacing along the other side of the room.

Deanna looked up at her serenely. "If you honestly wanted to ignore the truth, you should have picked a counselor who doesn't know you at all."

"I hate you." She glared at Deanna. "You know that?"

"Only because you know I'm right and it's the last thing you wanted to hear. Sit down, Bev. I want you to tell me what you plan to tell Tom, all right?"

"No, it's not all right. I can't just blurt it out! I need time to think about this."

Deanna smiled, thinking about other things her friend had thought to death. She rested her chin on her arm, which she'd draped over the back of the couch. "If you say so."

Beverly glared again. "Meaning, you know better?"

"When you think too much, you go into stasis. When you don't think too much, you accept a position at Starfleet Medical, take a bridge test, fall in love with Tom -- "

"I swear, I don't know how Jean-Luc can live with you!"

"He's capable of dealing with irrational behavior and tolerating the things he can't change. I think Tom is, too. Peach bubble bath, without asking. Not to mention giving you the choice of whether he took the starship or settled for a more stationary posting. He doesn't expect you to tolerate separations, or the Section. He fully expected you to leave him, but he did finally tell you. He's struggled with telling you since the Briar Patch. Surely you've noticed that?"

Beverly dropped into a chair and looked thoughtful. "I noticed he was being goofier than usual. . . . I suppose the counselor's going to tell me that's his coping mechanism?"

"Is it?"

She groaned, wincing. "I hate you."

"I hate you, too, thanks."

"I suppose I should start counting my blessings now, like, Tom's good at -- " She caught herself, cheeks pinking up nicely. The burn continued as her blue eyes turned stormy. "I was such a wreck last night."

"What are you going to do?" Deanna asked again, sensing it was time for reiterating the question.

"Whatever I can. Help, I guess. Jean-Luc's in this crazy scheme, and you are too, probably, and Tom's most likely got Data in on it. They spend a lot of time together. What else can I do?"

"Pack up and check out?"

"You used to be a lot more helpful." Beverly shot a brief annoyed glare at her.

Deanna utilized her 'knowing Betazoid' look. "You used to be a lot less able to cope. All I'm really here for is to listen to you vent."

Fond amusement at that. "Really? Then why does the conversation consistently turn back to Tom? Why can't I lead it off to other topics? Why have you asked questions and voiced no opinion?"

"Because a very frustrated man volunteered to babysit and let Maven run his ship in the interim so I could do it. We were both worried about you. You didn't leave the table smiling last night."

"No." She paced again, slower this time, arms crossed. "Am I going to be in the dark about what happened last night, too? What was that business with Maven all about?"

"That was the admiral's fault. You should ask Tom about it. I don't know all the details, either. Do you feel that you can talk to him less emotionally now?"

"I suppose -- " Beverly turned around and stared, head tilted, eyebrow raised.

"I don't think you should endlessly debate whether you stay or not," Deanna continued. "But I don't think you should just decide to stay, without discussing everything with him first. Including your feelings, and his."

"Why do I get the feeling I've just been manipulated?"

"You haven't. I was voicing an opinion, it just happened to coincide with what you already knew you should do."

"Oh, Dee," Beverly blurted, laughing. "I really have no idea what to do. I don't even know where Tom is."

Deanna stood, straightened her skirt, and stretched. She could have used more sleep, but she'd see this through before considering it. "Why don't we go find him, then?"

~^~^~^~^~

I woke as someone shook my shoulder.

"Tom?"

Had to be a dream. Beverly was gone.

"Tom, say something."

When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the ceiling in my quarters aboard my old ship, Phoenix. I expected to find I'd dreamed up the whole thing with the redhead and the *Venture,* and M'sieur and Madame Picard. But it was real. Beverly was there -- she filled my line of sight, with the elaborate gold light fixture hanging from the ceiling behind her. The various branchings of the fixture stuck out around her head like a crown. Worry filled her glistening blue eyes.

Glistening with tears. One spilled over as we hovered there between breaths.

I tried to sit up. The empty bottle next to me on the bed startled me -- I didn't remember having any Klingon bloodwine, let alone drinking it, but the familiar morning-after taste on my tongue told the tale.

"Shit." I fell back, rolling on my side. My head throbbed. "Sorry."

"What are you doing here?"

"Dying of a hangover." I must have also been drinking sand. My voice sounded that way. Beverly's trusty tricorder whirred, and a hypo and a few minutes of waiting cleared the headache.

Then it hit me like a warbird at warp -- she came looking for me.

"Why didn't you come back to the ship?" she demanded, watering down my elation but not doing away with it. Nothing could. I shoved myself up and there we were, facing each other while kneeling in the middle of a bed big enough for any six people. But she was in uniform, and furious, more tears spilling and ire replacing the worry.

"I was going to bring you here last night, as a surprise. I couldn't go back to the ship -- I was positive you'd be packing up your things and dictating your resignation. I couldn't handle it."

Her tortured expression killed the explanations I wanted to blurt. Shaking her head, she put a hand to her eyes, rubbing her brows then wiping tears. "Like I could handle sitting alone waiting for you to come back -- afraid to contact you, afraid to stay, afraid to leave. Jean-Luc said you would be fine and that he wanted you to explain everything when you got in from wherever you went. I didn't sleep a wink last night, and then I find you cuddled up in a rented room with an empty bottle?"

I *almost* said it was a good thing the triplets had left before she got there. Sometimes I'm actually capable of a small amount of tact. Joking around in this situation might be fatal. "I'm so sorry -- I'm a damned fool, Verly. I was convinced that you wouldn't want anything to do with me once you found out. And. . . it was probably a good thing I wasn't on the ship when my contact showed up."

"Maven?"

"Oh, never," I blurted, laughing at it. "She'd never make the cut. No, that was Nechayev's doing. They wanted to test my loyalty to the cause. Did Jean-Luc tell you what we're going to attempt?"

"Doing away with Section 31. Yes. Why couldn't *you* tell me?"

"I didn't want to lose you. Really selfish of me, I know, but you don't understand what it was like before -- you're the best friend I've had in a long, long time. People like me don't have close friends. And I love you, more than. . . ." More than I could express in words, obviously.

She looked out the viewport, which I'd left open to the stars. The grand view tended to make the room feel colder than it was. All that blackness, with pinpricks of light. Meeting my gaze once more, she shoved her hair behind her ear.

"I love you, too. I'm disappointed that you didn't think you could talk to me. I've told you so much, and you held this back -- I don't know if I can reconcile this."

"I didn't expect you to. I want to give it all up. I've told you before, I'll do whatever it takes for you, Verly. But there are some things I can't do. I wish I could unmake the decisions that put me in this position."

I hated the sag of her shoulders and the distress in her face. It was as though she'd aged twenty years in the past day. "Since you can't, we may as well face up to reality. What did your contact have to say?"

This wasn't Beverly as I knew her. I wished she would yell at me or something. "Not much. He wanted to know what happened in the Briar Patch. No new assignment, just questions."

"It's odd timing."

I'd thought that too. "Because of my plans with Jean-Luc and the others. But I didn't say anything that might give it away. I can lie well enough."

"I'm sure you can."

I slid to the edge of the bed and began to pace. "I wouldn't lie to you," I exclaimed.

"Just to protect me, right?" She watched my movements from where she sat.

"Lies of omission, work-related, that's all. You know I can't tell you everything even if I was only a captain. I didn't want my burdens to become yours -- not this burden, anyway."

"What do you do for them?"

"I used to work surveillance. I don't take the big chances. I'm harmless, as Section agents go, really."

"Never killed anyone?"

"You know better than that. We've all killed, Verly. We're all in Starfleet."

"War is different."

"No," I said, thinking about Cardassian prisons and Romulan firing squads, and ships disintegrating at my command. "Killing is killing."

"What's this?"

She'd found the wrapped box on the night stand, the gift I'd forgotten. "Your anniversary present."

As she unwrapped it, the realization struck -- I didn't want to believe it, I wanted like hell to think she had trusted me because she loved me. I didn't want to think that she trusted me because the Picards had vouched for me. Once started, however, the train of thought didn't go away.

"It's beautiful," she sighed, picking up the necklace of G'naian sky stones. I was right -- they matched her eyes. Each one was shaped like a perfect teardrop. They sparkled in any light, brighter than diamonds. "Thank you. I got you something, too, but it's back on the ship. I found the bubble bath."

"I didn't mean to ruin the anniversary. I intended to talk to you today. . . I just wanted one more day."

"It's not easy for me to grasp it. You've never seemed to have any of the ruthlessness I've always imagined it took to be part of the Section."

A popular misconception. Any human being is capable of the nastiness it took. The Section's full of ordinary people willing to dedicate themselves to its cause, and some not-so-ordinary ones.

"If I'd told you about the Section before the Briar Patch what would you have done?"

The answer was slow in coming. She stared at the necklace, letting the string of stones run through her fingers over and over. "I don't know," she said at last. "Last night, after I left the restaurant, I wanted to pack and leave. I wanted to get the next transport for Earth. I was shaking like an addict in withdrawal. I couldn't believe it. I still can't."

"I was stupid enough to think I would be able to play double agent and expose them. My dad was one of them. We never knew, until he was dead and we got a message he sent. The anger at having him die anonymously that way, of his being tricked into the Section and then having no way out -- it carried me for years until I was in it myself. Then I realized that he'd been as stupid as me. He hadn't seen what they really were. He'd joined to do just what Section agents do, believed their propaganda, and recognized years later how he'd prostituted himself. And then I got mad at him. And after that nothing I did mattered, I sold my soul for a dumb kid's pipe dream of a dad who wasn't any kind of hero, so why the hell not just get myself killed out here?"

My confession came to a lurching halt. It was tearing me apart by increments that she was even here, let alone waiting patiently for an explanation. I kept pacing and trying to look at her.

"If I really had any sense, I would never have let myself get close to you. For your sake. I fell for another pipe dream, one that included you and excluded the Section. I'm a dangerous person for you to be with. If they think I'm turning traitor, you're their first target. You're my biggest weakness, Verly. I'd rather die than see them hurt you."

"Why would they? I don't know anything."

She really didn't or she wouldn't say that. "They kill. They manipulate. They infiltrate and deceive. They'll pretend to be your best friend, get your trust, and use it to their advantage. There aren't really many Section agents out there. The concentration in the Briar Patch was an all-time high, and it tells me that project was something they thought would solve a lot of problems." She didn't know details about that so I stopped there.

"Tom, I don't know what to think of all this," she confessed, voice shaking. "I don't know what to believe. I want to stay. I don't want to lose you. But I can't quit imagining the things you've done, or might have done, and might still do because they tell you to."

The urge to scream in several languages died slowly. "They don't trust me completely for the real Section jobs. They recruited me because I changed my name to my father's and it caught their attention -- they recognized I was trying to redeem the name, which meant I was aware of them and might pose a risk. I've always been surveillance, and the missions into Cardassian space and the Romulan Empire were all such that regular intelligence might have carried them out, except. . . I was there to watch our own intelligence people. As backup, for those the Section considers particularly risky."

"So if the Section considered Jean-Luc a risk and he went on an undercover mission what would happen? They would watch him and do something to alter what he did?"

"No, no. If the mission started to go bad we were to deal with any obstacles and correct the situation. Even if the obstacle was our own agent."

I looked at her finally, and in the same moment she looked at me. Consternation clouded in her eyes as she mulled through it. "Do they make deals under the table, too, with our enemies? Like the Cardassians?"

"If it suited their agenda they'd make a deal with anyone."

"There were a few questionable missions. A few instances. . . . The one to Celtrus was a setup. Someone sold us out to the Cardassians and Jean-Luc was held captive. I wondered if the Section had something to do with it."

"I don't know. Never heard of it. Part of the difficulty of trying to nail down the Section -- the agents don't know each other."

"Were you active during the war?"

"Four missions. One into the Maquis, two to Cardassia, one to the Gamma Quadrant that went nowhere. I lost my partner on one of the Cardassia trips and worked alone after that."

"Only four?"

I shrugged. "I was also captain of a ship, and they know how many times you can vanish without making it seem odd."

I felt like a kid playing get-to-know-you games. Like I hadn't been sleeping with this woman for a year, and we were only just meeting for the first time. The elephant now sat between us in all its glory, and I wanted to kill the damned thing with a vengeance.

"I love you, Verly," I said at last. "I hate the way the anniversary came out. This was supposed to be a lot different."

"I know. I think I'm still in shock. . . ."

She was, from the expression on her face. All the clouds I hated to see raced through her eyes and put a frown between them, over her nose. It was a look she'd had when we evacuated the space station at Alvara IV, when sickbay overflowed with folks in various stages of radiation sickness. Preoccupied.

"I need time to think," she said.

"Anything you want."

She nodded. When she got up, she put on the necklace then came to me, arms out. She kissed me -- I think she meant it to be brief, but it turned into something a little more involved than usual. I contemplated trying to turn it into something even more involved, but let go of her when she moved away.

"I'll understand. Whatever decision you make, I can accept it."

It caught her off guard; her head came up, and she half-turned toward me again. I held my breath but she didn't come back. Watching her leave tore my heart to pieces.

But at the door, she hesitated. "You're coming home? Not staying here?"

I couldn't do anything but nod. Even my breathing stopped. My heart pounded too loudly.

"I'll see you at lunch, then."

The door opened and shut. I exhaled, fell to my knees, then toppled forward on my face. The carpet smelled like feet and whatever synthetics comprised the dense green fibers.

In spite of myself, I felt hope flickering to life again -- I thought of the smell of the peach bubble bath lingering on her skin, and fanned the flames.

 

~^~^~^~^~

Jean-Luc had brought the baby into the bedroom with him, and both of them lay on the made bed, asleep. He hadn't intended to fall asleep, Deanna guessed. In uniform, he lay on his left side, one hand still resting on the baby.

She listened to the rhythm of their breathing. Yves grunted in his sleep and waved his hand. Tiny fingers opened and curled up again. Jean-Luc had put him in the sky-blue jumper. She laid a hand over her son's head, barely touching the fine black hair, savoring the moment.

She sensed when Jean-Luc woke but waited for him to speak first. He moved his head, peered up at her, and smiled. "How did it go?"

"All right. We found Tom. I left her to deal with him. Apparently, he got himself a room and got drunk. I see you've found a new way to get the baby to sleep -- providing an example for him to follow."

"Come on in, there's plenty of room."

She arranged herself on the right side of the bed, putting her hand over his on their son's chest. For a little while they lay in silence.

"Talk to me," Jean-Luc murmured.

She opened one eye. He had propped himself up on one elbow, head in hand. "About?"

"Something has been bothering you. You haven't meditated in nearly a week, and you're always tired. I thought I'd give you time, see if you would sort it out. Is there anything I can do?"

She stared at their hands stacked upon their son's chest, at the rings they wore. "Do you think I'm a good mother?"

His shock stabbed her. "Why would you think otherwise?"

"I don't know if 'think' is the right word."

"Cygne, you know better than this."

"It's much easier to be rational about things when you're not involved in them. He's so beautiful, he has so much potential -- I want so many things for him. I can't stop thinking that I should be there for him no matter what."

Jean-Luc's expression turned grim. "You're considering quitting Starfleet. Again."

"If we're both on the bridge in an emergency, who will stay with him?"

One eyebrow moved. His eyes shifted, focusing on the baby, and he touched Yves' chin with his thumb. "If you center your life on our children, what will happen when they are grown and it's time to let them go?"

"I know," she whispered. "But. . . ."

"Balance is important. You've lectured me about it before. You've pointed out to me that Starfleet has statistical data now on the differences between captains who have families and those who literally have no one. What you've not told me is what the spouses of those better-adjusted captains with families do themselves. I know you have the best of intentions, but this whole time you've been considering this, you haven't been happy."

While he spoke, he pulled his hand from beneath hers and stroked the back of her hand and fingers. Deanna smiled. "I'm sorry. I know better, I miss my work -- maybe all of this is guilt over that."

"You have nothing to feel guilty about." He smirked. "Well, maybe one thing."

"You're not in the mood at the moment, Jean-Fish."

"I should go, actually. Finish as much as I can before we go on leave."

But he lingered, caressing her arm, reaching for her face. His fingertips felt warm along her cheek. It reminded her of the beginning, when she'd been so surprised and disbelieving. He had reassured her even though he'd had his own doubts -- they'd reassured each other by turns.

"I love you, Jean-Fish."

He sat up, leaning across to kiss her. "I'll be back in a while. Keep that smile, it looks good on you."

But after he left, she lay next to her son, who still slept. She traced his profile, felt the minute movement of air as he breathed, and remembered the day he was born. Remembered the sudden emptiness and the wrench of returning to duty while Yves left the ship in the care of others. The emptiness she felt now was different, but no less distressing.

Rubbing her abdomen, she watched her baby sleep and tried to feel happy. She had, at times, but wondered now if she could only do it when Jean-Luc was with her. At the moment all she could feel was loss, and memories of other losses came to mind.

Yves woke and kicked; she pushed herself on an elbow and smiled down at him. His eyes fixed on her face. Though his expression didn't change, she sensed that it comforted him to have her there -- he was happy. The pain of loss retreated.

Taking him into her arms, she got up and headed for the rocking chair in the nursery.

~^~^~^~^~

I made it home in plenty of time for lunch. A quick tour through quarters reassured me that all was as I left it, except for the case with a green bow on it that lay on the couch. Must be Beverly's present to me, for the anniversary that almost turned disastrous. I sat and opened it.

A new guitar. I'd mentioned losing my old one when the ship I'd been XO on had been destroyed and the crew had to bail in pods. The Glendenning family had a penchant for all things musical. We all danced, and my sisters had musical talent; Catriona the professional dancer also played a passable flute, Olivia had provided piano accompaniment for all of us, the twins had taken up oboe and clarinet. I was the odd one out as usual. I hated piano, broke reeds on Chloe's clarinet, learned a scale on the flute and quit, then a friend showed me his guitar and taught me a few chords. Mom got me a guitar eagerly when I asked and sent me to a friend of hers for lessons. No one could ever accuse me of having a future in music, but I could play it.

I tried a few chords. You never forget -- it came back to me quickly, my hands moved almost out of instinct, and though I knew I'd have sore fingertips I played until I'd remembered that song.

My father had played piano. It was how my parents met -- he had been playing for fun one night in the theater on Academy grounds, and she was there to take a look at the stage before a performance she was to be in. In one of his last messages home before his death, he'd sent along a recording he'd made of a song he played and sang, and my mother had played it for me years later, after I'd learned what he really was.

I still knew almost all the words. The chords came back slower. By the time Beverly came in, I had both words and music -- but my resolve faltered. I couldn't play it for her yet. With a shift of the chords, I resorted to another song from one of several recording my mother had made of my dad noodling around at the piano when he'd come home from space. I hammed it up terribly.

"Hey bud, is that your sister or is it that she can't see so good?

I've been all around this world and I've never understood

What makes a woman love, what makes somebody care

There ought to be some logic but I don't see any there. . . .

Doot doo doo . . . ."

Beverly busied herself with getting things from the replicator while I plucked out exaggerated vamped chords and tried to sing more or less on key. She even smiled a little at the long string of doot-doodly-doo, so I moved on.

"Do you have a lot of money or some hidden attribute?

Can't she face the obvious, her problem is acute

Cause you don't know how to dress; you got that goofy little walk

Your girlfriend needs a raincoat 'cause you sputter when you talk

I've boned up on my history and it's still a mystery

Mister, it's a mystery to me

Maybe she's a saint who took some pity on your soul

She had too much compassion and then just went out of control

Now you're walking hand in hand, I'd have said no way

I do believe in miracles 'cause I've seen one today

Does she have a judgement problem or maybe lose some kind of bet?

Contract some strange affliction doctors haven't conquered yet?

What makes a woman love, what makes somebody care

There ought to be some logic but I don't see any there. . . ."

I ended with a long string of doodly-doot-doos but couldn't get another smile out of her. I set aside the guitar and joined her for a quiet lunch.

The longer she took to speak, the harder it got for me to sit still. We sat over empty plates for a bit, then she smiled. She couldn't look at me for more than a few seconds. Her eyes landed here and there, finally coming to rest on the guitar.

"Play something else. Do you do requests?"

"I'm not that good. Let's see what else I can remember." I moved to the couch again and picked up the guitar. Most of what I knew were folk songs, the sort groups sing around camp fires. I was pretty bad and my fingers were getting sore. Finally, I put us both out of misery and set the instrument aside.

"Thanks for the guitar. It's a good one. You'll have to forgive my sorry playing, it's only been years since the last time I played."

"It sounded okay to me." She rested her chin on the back of the couch, draping herself like a lazy cat. "What was your mother like? Did she know what your father did?"

"She found out after he was gone. You know who delivered the message? Lieutenant Picard."

Beverly gaped. "Really?"

"Jean-Luc was aboard Dad's ship for a short time."

"Oh." She fidgeted and glanced around. "I should get back."

"Sure." I knew there wasn't anything to get back to. Inventory of sickbay supplies, maybe, or one of her ongoing research projects. She had no patients. But she got up, fidgeted a little more, and smiled the weak smile of someone trying really hard to act like nothing's wrong and knowing she's failing.

"Tom," she began, glancing around.

"It's all right, Beverly."

Her eyes settled on me. "Is it?"

"I understand how you feel. I'm grateful you're giving me a chance. It's probably more than I deserve."

"I don't think you understand how I feel at all."

I couldn't make a sound. I looked up at her, wishing I could read minds.

"You can't," she continued, hugging herself and looking at the floor again. "You've never lost someone and known that the people responsible would never be punished for his death."

"Fine," I croaked. "Then I know how Wesley feels. I lost my father to them. I've lost more than that -- do you think I enjoy living in their shadow? And now I'll probably lose you, which is the worst yet, but I suppose I should expect it. Some bad decisions you never recover from, you just have to live with the consequences. I'm doing my best, Beverly. I can't see what else I can do."

She hurried out of the room. I'd probably just made another mistake. Rather than sit around thinking about it, I checked messages and uploaded a bunch of things to a padd for further study on the fly. Time to survey the repairs to my ship.

The romantic pictures the PR department paints of command don't include the reality of administrative nightmares. Captains have a variety of functions, but we spend most of our time supervising, and that means our primary occupation is information exchange. All the reports of department heads go to us. It's our job to deduce where problems might develop and make decisions on what to do about it. We report to our CO on the ship's status, the crew's status, and the mission status. We have to know enough about everything to make coherent summary reports. Admirals don't want to wade through endless details unless it's absolutely necessary, but they want to know The Important Things, which includes day-to-day operations, not just that last world where someone killed the last serpent in Klonath Lake by accident. If we miss something, if our reports are inadequate and there's a tangible result -- a malfunction, a depressed crew member going stark raving lunatic with a spanner, a complaint filed by an officer regarding something we've overlooked because we fell asleep reading the relevant report -- a full investigation can be launched and a career ended. The captain is always responsible. You've got to have a well-oiled set of senior officers who work together well and write decent reports; it can make or break you.

Data caught up with me in a corridor on my way to engineering. "Good morning, sir."

"Hi, Data. Everything ship shape?"

"Yes, sir." He smiled. That was a running joke -- the first time I had asked, he'd provided the galaxy's longest detailed list of things shaped like a ship. Intrepids looked like teaspoons, Sovereigns like standard-issue shovels, and so on. I let him go until he stopped on his own. I told him if he ever did that again when he knew what I'd really meant, I'd put replication units in his mouth, a spigot where his ear was, and program him so I wouldn't have to leave the bridge for coffee. He stared at me a moment, then grinned and told me he believed he would like serving with me.

I guess that was something else you would've had to be there to appreciate. My life is full of those.

"How was babysitting?" I asked, remembering his intent to volunteer to do so for the Picards on their anniversary.

"Educational. Did you enjoy your dinner?"

"Sure." Tit for tat. No details on babysitting, no dirt on dinner. "What do you think of Maven? You've met her, haven't you?"

Data's lips sprang back to their default position, losing the smile. "I have. I do not believe Captain Picard will tolerate her for very long."

"Not like he has much choice when it's temporary and the admiral put her there."

"If she is disruptive he would have grounds to dismiss her. Sir, about the flight control officer and the other changes on the duty roster -- if you have no objections I would like to proceed with the assignments and inform the officers before I go on leave."

"If you sent them I've got them here." I held up the padd. "I'll let you know by the end of the day. Going somewhere special on leave?"

"Worf has offered transportation to Deep Space Nine. I have not been there since before the Dominion War, and have not been to Bajor. This seemed an excellent opportunity to go. I believe Captain Riker has also taken him up on the offer of a ride."

"Good. Hope you enjoy your week of wormhole-watching."

"There is far more to do than simply watch the wormhole. A team of Bajoran scientists has recreated an ancient type of solar sail ship, and intends to launch it in three days. I have asked to be a part of the crew." Data hesitated, and I knew that meant something serious was about to come out. "Sir, I have noticed that there are very few families aboard. Is that intentional?"

"Not really. There aren't so many families on ships in general, these days. Why?"

"I had thought about attempting to create another child."

The wording and the idea brought me to a halt. "Another?"

"I attempted to build another android. She did not. . . survive. I thought I should ask you before devoting any ship resources to another such project."

Data's schematics are sealed up tighter than Maven's shorts. You either have higher clearance than mine, or his permission, or you don't see them. But I could imagine what went into an android like him and he'd told me some of the basics. "You'd be getting the materials yourself?"

"Certainly."

"What would you need in the way of space?"

"One of the labs could be easily tailored to suit my purposes. I would only utilize off duty time -- I would not require paternity leave."

"Paternity -- aw, hell, Data," I exclaimed, laughing and running my fingers through my hair. "Go ahead, plan and build as you wish. It'll be fun. I can start making you the butt of parent jokes."

"Thank you, sir. Perhaps I will name him after you."

"Shit! That's the last thing I'd want. How about twins? Bit and Byte?"

He walked to the transporter room with me, as we discussed names for android offspring in our usual half-serious, half-teasing way. "By the way," I began as if it had been the last thing on my mind, "did you give out any *classified information* to your former CO recently? A sign and countersign, for instance?"

I'd never seen him well and truly caught in the act before. He turned dead serious, actually looking worried. "The admiral gave me a direct order to tell her anything that I could to prove you were trustworthy. I could not give her any information but I could suggest that she confront you directly. She took that suggestion in a manner other than I intended, I fear. Captain Picard argued against her idea. Deanna commented that you would see through any attempt to pretend to be a fellow agent, because of the elaborate uses of passwords -- that led the admiral to ask if one of us knew any of them. Since the alternative was to foster the admiral's mistrust of you, and the consequences of that might be detrimental to your career as well as our extracurricular goals, I gave the information to Captain Picard, knowing that he would not use it unwisely and that you would pass whatever test the admiral decided to give you."

I couldn't suppress the grin. Knowing that Data had acted out of a desire to protect me made a world of difference. He'd never be devious. I had wanted him as first officer for that reason, and I appreciated him now more than ever.

"Thanks, Data. Have a good time on Bajor."

He smiled again. "I will, sir. I hope your leave is equally satisfying." And just like that, he was walking away again.

I glanced at the padd as I turned to go, and one of the headers stopped me in my tracks. Bringing up the message stunned me backward a step. I'd contacted one of the very few people I'd ever heard of who had connections to the Section, someone Sloan had name-dropped once in passing. A doctor on Deep Space Nine. I'd checked him out before making contact and couldn't see anything suspicious.

The message I got back used words like 'serendipitous' and 'have some news for you.' And would I please come to the station, to discuss our 'mutual friend' and to pick up something that he'd determined was mine.

Movement without thinking should be my trademark. I looked up to find Ensign Zhezwinn eyeballing me with all four stalks. I'd walked into the transporter room.

"Zhir?"

"The *Enterprise,* Ensign."

"Yezh, zhir."

I was lucky I could speak, at that point. About the time I reached Picard's quarters, it finally occurred to me that I'd come here without thinking. About the time I'd hit the annunciator, it occurred to me to wonder why. Maybe the fact that Jean-Luc came across as someone who respected your right to be a dumbass.

Now, there's an ancient word. If the archaic colloquialism fits, though. . . .

When the door opened I was confronted by a tired-looking Betazoid wearing a pink robe. "Oh. Sorry. I'll -- "

"What's wrong, Tom?" She pulled me inside. "Sit down."

I couldn't sit. Pacing around the room, I handed her the padd on my first pass, then kept going with my hands in my hair and my head down. After another two circuits she got in front of me and grabbed me by both arms. She backed me up to a chair and shoved.

"It's a mistake," I exclaimed as I let myself fall.

Deanna pulled the other chair around and turned it to face mine at an angle. Counselors did that. Face the patient, but not directly. We sat under the viewports, a large decorative flowering plant behind her, and I tried to comprehend what might have led to this.

"It doesn't look like a mistake. I doubt Dr. Bashir would have said anything if he hadn't run all the necessary tests. Have you asked Beverly to check?"

That was the last straw. For the first time in decades, I lost control of myself, without the influence of alcohol or temporary insanity. Face in my hands, a knot in my gut, I cried. I'm sure she's seen grown men cry before; she didn't try to comfort me, but she did bring me something to wipe my face after the few moments of rainy weather.

"Shit," I gasped, yanking the cloth from her fingers. The last thing I wanted was her mopping my face like a mother. "Sorry."

"Don't worry. I won't think any less of you for it. You can talk to me, Tom. I'm good at confidentiality."

"Yeah, but talking won't do any good. I've lost her. She's already halfway gone. There's nothing I can say or do that I haven't already, and this -- "

Deanna sat again, her hands clasped in her lap. "Go to her. Give her the chance. You know she loves you."

"Sometimes love isn't enough."

She has such sad eyes, sometimes. "If you decide that's so, you're right. It can only make a difference if you allow it to. She thought she knew you intimately, Tom. Then you reveal your Section affiliation to her. It shocked her."

"And you want me to shock her again by telling her about *this*?"

"This is different. This will give her something immediate and concrete that she can help you with. She needs something to do, it's how she handles her fear. Go ask your chief medical officer to help you with this. I have the feeling the rest of it will work itself out with time."

Deanna's worked with Beverly for a long time. I guess she'd know. Still, going back to my ship and heading for sickbay sounded like a bad idea.

"You are correct," Deanna murmured. "She's halfway gone. But she's still here, and she wants to believe that the man she's lived with for almost a year wasn't only pretending. You're the only one who can convince her of that, Tom."

"Thanks. I needed to hear it from someone else, I guess. How are you? Better?"

A tired smile. "Getting there." She glanced at the nursery door seconds before a familiar wail started. "Duty calls. It's good to see you. I was worried about you."

My surprise turned to awkward fumbling when she looked askance at me. I stood up, and she got up with me. "I'll let you get back to Yves -- see you later."

She sees right through you. Her dark eyes seemed to say as much, anyway. Another smile, with a hint of mischief, and she grabbed my arm. "You haven't held the baby yet."

What was I going to do, run? I let her drag me into the nursery and watched her pick up the kid with the usual maternal spot inspection.

"This is your Uncle Tom," she told the still-whimpering baby as she handed him to me. His vaguely-unhappy expression and slightly-crossed pale gray eyes were typical of young infants. The end of my finger fit neatly in one of his hands; he gripped it like a baby will do. He yawned, made a few more distressed noises, and settled in.

"Cute kid," I said, wishing kids didn't make me such a big softie.

"Having a child alters one's perspective radically. You begin to see your choices in a new light." She let me pass him back to her. "Everything you do affects another person, or people, when you have a family. It can either free you or make you feel confined -- I know I look at my career differently now. I'll adjust. It will get easier. I've made adjustments to life-changing events before."

I knew what she was subtly trying to tell me. "Like marrying Captain Picard?"

"Like marrying a former patient who is also Captain Picard, who was at one time unable to bring himself to join his officers for a simple poker game. Some of us have difficulty letting another person become too familiar with who we really are. But loving someone and letting them love you in return can empower you."

I merely nodded, handed over the kid, and left. She didn't seem to mind my not saying good-bye. She probably knew how uncomfortable the whole conversation had become. I hurried to the transporter room, shoring up my determination to see this through to the bitter end.

"Doctor," I exclaimed, striding into Beverly's office with more confidence than I felt. "I need your opinion on something."

She accepted the padd I offered. I sat down to wait. She remained calm, but frowned as she read through the information Bashir had sent. Finally her eyes flicked up to meet mine.

"It looks like you have a daughter, Captain."

"I'll have to go get her. It'll give you time to think while I'm gone, I guess. When we get back I'll have you examine -- "

"Excuse me, *sir,* but I think it would be best if I went with you. I could talk to Dr. Bashir and this Counselor Dax in person and examine the girl there."

Her formality hadn't been unexpected; she retreated to it in moments of public discomfort, and since this was sickbay it qualified as public. My tongue seized up. When I could finally inhale, I put a hand over my eyes and sighed.

"Tom," she began softly, then surprised me. "Geraint. We'll go together."

"This isn't fair to you. I don't expect -- "

"I don't care what you expect, look at me, damn it!" She leaned forward, elbows on her desk, and glared through tears. "You were right. All I could think about was what I lost -- but I haven't lost you yet. I know you're doing what you can to get out of it. Can't we just go forward from here? One day at a time?"

"That's up to you. Are you sure you even want to try?"

She glanced down at the padd. Her throat moved as she swallowed. "After my husband died, I wrapped myself up in career and motherhood as if it could keep me safe. It did, for a long time. When I finally tried to come out of stasis I found that everything had changed. Wesley is on his own, I don't even know where he is. My career isn't enough any more. I want what I had before you told me about 31. I don't know if it's going to work or not, but the only way to find out is to try -- I'll never know if I leave, and I'd always look back and wonder if it would have worked. I have enough things to look back and wonder about."

"All right." My hands trembled, I noticed, and I grabbed the arms of the chair to stop them. "All right."

"Is it? You don't look so good."

"Wrong kind of stress. I'd rather be facing down a fleet of battleships. You scared the living shit out of me, Verly, I thought I'd lose you the minute I told you about my sordid past, and when I got this message about this girl, I thought it would tip the balance for sure."

"Well, surprise." She came around the desk. I stood to meet her and surprised myself with shaky knees.

Having her in my arms again felt damn good. "I should probably tell you I don't think she's mine."

"It's a little hard to argue with genetics, Tom."

"But I'm more careful than that, and I've never had a Bajoran girlfriend. I've worked with several, one of them quite closely, but I've never had sex with one. I don't even know if conception would be possible -- is it?"

She sighed. "It's not a simple thing, but it is. There's no chance you might've gotten drunk and forgotten?"

"I worked with Bajorans. I don't drink and work. I especially don't get tipsy while on a covert op, and all of my encounters with Bajorans fall in that category."

"Well, there's enough evidence that she's related to you in some way. Want me to pull up your DNA and show you?"

"No. I'm sorry," I mumbled into her hair. "I'll find a way through this."

"That's the only thing you do that bugs me. You act like I'm not part of the equation."

"That's not true. I can't expect you to take any risks in something that I brought on myself long before I met you."

She grabbed my shoulders and held me away from her, thumbs digging into my arms. "You don't have to expect anything. You could accept the help when offered, though, couldn't you? At least make me feel included?"

"If it's the only thing that bugs you, I guess I could try."

She sniffed. "Well, there's also that annoying little thing you do with your fork when you're eating pasta. And when you intentionally stomp on my toes when we're dancing."

"Don't push your luck, sweet pea."

"That's okay." Her lips grazed my cheek. "Twiddle pasta all you like. I'm your officer, Tom. I'm your friend. I love you. If I can do anything, even if it's risky, I want to. All right?"

"You can trust me?"

"Can I?"

I certainly hoped so. At least she'd gone with the part of her that wanted to stay, for now.

~^~^~^~^~

 

From the nursery, the sounds of Yves being inconsolable slowed. Deanna cleaned up after their guests, the parents and children of the *Enterprise,* and let Papa handle the infant crisis of the moment. The little gathering had worn on Jean-Luc's patience, especially when Kenny Ching demanded a piggy-back ride. The party had gone on too long for "Uncle Captain's" taste.

They hadn't heard from Tom or Beverly again. Hopefully, that meant things were going well. Deanna kept pushing them from her thoughts, determined to keep her focus on her own concerns. She participated vicariously in the process of soothing the baby, caught up in the emotions of her family and the contentment it brought her to sense the echoes of their reactions to one another. It made her movements slower than they would have been as she picked up cups and stray toys.

She shook herself out of the rapt focus on her son and husband when the annunciator sounded. She didn't recognize the person, which meant it wasn't a fellow crew member or one of their friends. Though there was something familiar about the visitor, that meant nothing. She needed more time with a person to identify them at first contact.

"Come," she called, turning from discarding the last few cups and straightening her dress. The doors opened, and Admiral Nechayev came in.

She still wore the duty grays she'd been in the day before, but without pips or bars. "Commander," she said, sounding as pleasant as she didn't feel. Something bothered her. The 'static' of it registered as a murmur to Deanna's empathy.

"Admiral. Is there something we can do for you?"

Nechayev glanced about. "Is the captain here?"

"He's trying to convince the baby to sleep. Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thank you." Nechayev gave her a quick look that might have gone unnoticed, if she weren't able to also sense the sudden interest behind it. The admiral said nothing, however.

Deanna resumed her cleaning. As she leaned to pick up Mr. Tiggles, the stuffed targ toy one of the children had left for Yves, she heard the admiral clear her throat lightly.

"Commander, what do you think of Captain Glendenning?"

Deanna hugged the targ and came around the table to face the admiral. "I don't understand the question. Surely you remember our earlier conversation -- the one during which you decided to stage the power play in the restaurant."

She came closer, studying Deanna sharply. "I want to know your opinion of him, not your captain's."

"Why do you think I was not expressing my opinion of him?"

"So you sense that he is trustworthy?"

Pushing her shoulders back, Deanna inhaled, containing her irritation. "He hasn't lied to us. He didn't have to help us in the Briar Patch -- he could have concealed his affiliation with the Section easily, but he didn't."

"That isn't what I asked."

Deanna considered the admiral's request, but knew that like Tom, Nechayev had her share of unrevealed information. In the few discussions of the Section which Deanna had been present for, Nechayev had had an interesting array of emotional reactions to comments about Tom. Deanna gathered the admiral had a grudge, for some reason, and that something about Tom actually frightened her.

"Are you asking me for a subjective analysis based on what I sense? Those are often inaccurate, and like most Betazoids I respect the privacy of non-telepaths."

"Your captain speaks of how much he trusts your judgement in log after log."

"Perhaps because I only speak out when I believe my perceptions will benefit the mission?"

Nechayev began to pace. Deanna let her, turning to face her as she circled the room. "Your perception of Glendenning is of no benefit to us, then? Does this mean you trust him in spite of what you sense?"

"It means that I trust him because his actions coincide with what I sense."

"And what is that, exactly?"

Jean-Luc emerged from the nursery. He glanced at Nechayev, whose back was turned to him, and at Deanna, questioning.

"Are you wishing a cumulative report of what I sensed from him, or a simple report of what he is now? There has been quite a change in him since my first encounter with him."

"When was that first encounter?"

"About a year and a half ago."

"Cumulative, then."

"Tom and Jean-Luc and several other captains met in the back room of a bar one evening, and I was waiting in the bar for Jean-Luc. Tom struck me as hard and cynical, ruthless, keeping up a facade of pleasantness for the sake of appearances. When we met again six months later, he had changed -- I sensed that the hardness had given way to a raw, rough-edged frustration. At that point he met Dr. Crusher and each successive time I have seen him, he was more open and less cynical. And, at irregular intervals, he was afraid. I suspect that part of his fear was associated with the knowledge that the Section might contact him and his time with Beverly would likely end. He's never expected her to tolerate his occupation."

"What about his motives?"

"I can't sense motivations. Only emotions. If I were to judge his motives based upon my observations, I would likely be wrong."

"Admiral," Jean-Luc said, stepping into the conversation. "I wasn't aware you were still on the starbase."

"It seemed silly to go all the way back to Earth when the admiralty ball will be on Deep Space Nine." Nechayev smiled at him. "You will be attending as well, for once? I doubt you'll be able to find an emergency to keep you away with your ship under repair."

"We'll be leaving tomorrow, actually. We're meeting Deanna's mother on the station -- she's also attending the ball."

"I see. Perhaps we could go together."

"If you aren't opposed to riding in a shuttle with someone you don't trust," Deanna said. "Captain Glendenning is going with us as well."

"Why should that bother me?"

"I don't know why. I only know he frightens you."

"I am *not* frightened of Captain Glendenning," Nechayev exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, Admiral, of course you aren't. That's a ridiculous notion. Please excuse my irrational and erroneous observation."

The admiral eyed her, glancing at Jean-Luc just as suspiciously. "Is she this disrespectful all the time?"

Jean-Luc straightened his shirt. The old habit persisted even out of uniform. "It's not disrespect. You asked her to be honest about her observations, Elena."

"Fear would be justified if you're on Tom's bad side. He's very quick and deadly when he wants to be." Deanna tossed the stuffed targ on the couch.

"You were a lot more reassuring when you were a counselor," Jean-Luc exclaimed, giving her a warning look.

"It's true. I've seen Tom in action. I might be more wary of him myself if I didn't know he'd decided to work with us." She turned a cool look on Nechayev.

"When will we be leaving?" the admiral asked, addressing Jean-Luc.

"Ten hundred hours tomorrow."

"I'll see you then." The admiral's eyes slid over Deanna as she turned to go. Wary. Interesting, in light of Nechayev's feelings about Tom. At Deanna's mention of Tom being quick and deadly, the admiral's trepidation had increased, and now she was suspicious of Deanna, as if merely knowing Tom was dangerous was in itself a threat. Perhaps the hint of comradery made her fear that Deanna would convey this conversation to Tom? So many possible explanations for such emotions. It was an empath's curse -- the preciseness of telepathy eluded her.

After Nechayev left, Jean-Luc ran a hand over his scalp. "Must you play with the admiral, Dee?"

"She started it. I don't like being ordered to play sensor grid that way, not when it's a fellow officer. Tom isn't the enemy."

"In a way, he is."

Deanna did a double-take. "Are you starting to doubt him now, too?"

"No." He kneaded the back of his neck, sighing. "But I see the admiral's point of view. If we didn't know Tom as we do, if we hadn't been in the Briar Patch together facing the same enemies, I'd be skeptical too. Elena's right -- it isn't easy for leopards to change their spots."

"You would know that better than anyone, I suppose."

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, incredulous. "Are you saying that I've changed my spots?"

Deanna sensed the upset an instant before Yves began to cry. She smiled when, without hesitation, Jean-Luc abandoned the conversation and went back to the nursery. Sitting on the couch, she kicked off her shoes. "I hope some things never change," she mumbled.

~^~^~^~^~

"Would you quit looking at me that way?" Beverly muttered, moving away from me.

"What way?" She hadn't moved far enough that I couldn't keep my arm around her waist.

"Ssh!"

I thought I heard Deanna snicker. She didn't glance over her shoulder though, just kept walking down the corridor ahead of us toward the Enterprise shuttle bay.

"If I don't know how I'm looking at you how am I supposed to not -- "

"Tom!" She stopped and faced me more directly. "What happened to the official low profile? For God's sake, you're not a teenager!"

I feigned innocence, even added a one-shouldered shrug. When she didn't stop glaring, I sighed. "Fine. If you have to have an explanation, I'm completely infatuated with you all over again for sticking with me through this. I've always had to face things alone. Excuse me for rejoicing at my change of fortune."

"Tom," she exclaimed again, but with less hostility and more exasperation.

"All right, let's go before they leave us here." She led the way through the door. We crossed the open area to the larger of the shuttles in the bay, and I let our bags slide off my shoulder so I could get through the door.

This was a slightly-redesigned runabout, with seating for ten passengers. The interior smelled like a baby -- fortunately, like formula, not the less pleasant odors possible. Deanna sat, braided her hair, then picked up a bottle and resumed feeding Yves, who was strapped in a carrier sitting on the chair next to her. I put the bags in the back along with some others and sat across the aisle from her with Beverly. We enjoyed a few peaceful moments of watching a contented mother feeding her baby and glowing all over the place while she did it. Then Deanna's head jerked up as if she'd heard someone sneaking up on her; sighing heavily, she glanced at me, then over her shoulder at the door.

" -- don't see why we can't," a familiar voice exclaimed. Nechayev entered, took a chair behind me, and raised an eyebrow at me. "Something wrong, Captain?"

Jean-Luc came in and tossed a bag in the back. "I thought we were taking the gig," he exclaimed, heading forward.

"Talk to your first officer," Deanna shot back. "She has it scheduled for maintenance."

"My ship is undergoing major repair and she wants to maintain the gig that hardly ever sees use and sustained no damage. Women," he tossed over his shoulder as he passed into the cockpit.

"Be careful how you say that," Deanna called. "Don't insult the pilot."

"Oh, great, we're on the good ship Estrogen," I said, not able to stop myself even in the presence of Our Lady of Admiralty. Damned nervous babbling. Deanna gave me a laughing, I-don't-believe-you-said-that look. I knew Nechayev and Beverly were staring. Trapped aboard the shuttle Estrogen and no help in sight.

"Are you saying you don't have enough testosterone to balance the load?" Deanna has a great cheesy grin. Jean-Luc, who'd been coming back out, stopped in the door and blinked, then returned to the cockpit. Seconds later Natalia Greenman, in dark blue pants and a lighter blue shirt, trotted out. She grinned at me and sat with Deanna. The lieutenant looked too young to be as tough as I knew she was. I understood why Jean-Luc had more or less adopted her as a protege and hoped he'd have better results with her than I'd had with Emily Forbes.

"What are you doing out here? I thought you were the pilot," Beverly said.

"The captain decided he wanted to do it." She whipped out a deck of cards. "Feeling lucky?" she asked, waving the deck at me.

"Kid, you're really pushing it."

"I know my salary's not much, but why are you complaining when I'm practically giving it to you?"

We waited until after takeoff and rearranged ourselves around the table in the back, Deanna with the baby in her arms and a spot of urp on the shoulder of her pastel green dress. She's been wearing brighter colors since we got to starbase after the Briar Patch, as if counteracting the drab gray and black of her uniform. Greenman didn't blink twice when the admiral joined us.

I had the distinct pleasure of whupping the britches off Nechayev and Greenman, until I got a crummy hand and bluffed too big. When the cards went down, Deanna took all, with a shit-eating smirk I had to laugh at. I wanted to know why Nechayev was there but asking might upset the equilibrium -- she played with a straight face, smiling very little and saying next to nothing. Surprising that she even participated. But the glances at me made me wonder if she might be trying to get on my good side. Now, there's a bit of silliness. Like she'd even care about being on my good side. I probably had crumbs in my mustache or something.

We eventually lost interest. When the play became listless, Bev returned to the seats closer to the front with a medical journal. Nechayev just moved and sat with folded arms, and Greenman rummaged in the baggage and came up with a honest-to-goodness paper book before moving forward. Deanna, however, stayed at the table and watched me shuffle and start a game of solitaire.

"What?" I said at last, soft enough that hopefully the three up front wouldn't be disturbed.

"How are you?"

I thought as I put down the cards and looked at her that this must be the counselor, as she'd been before becoming first officer. Very soft and inviting demeanor. One of the best I'd seen on a counselor -- that was probably the human male kicking in, responding to a pretty face showing interest. You just don't see that kind of demeanor on male counselors. My last two have been male.

"Coping. I have to."

Yves complained but quieted when she shifted her grip on him and patted his back. Her automatic reassurances and the way she held the baby, familiar and possessive, differed from what I knew of mothers with infants. My sister Chloe had been a fluttery, devoted, paranoid mother, toting around her baby as if she'd glued him to her arm and didn't quite know how to handle him. Deanna's natural serenity trebled when she held Yves, although there was that lingering air of sadness.

"Still thinking about the Briar Patch?"

It startled her into looking at me in dismay. "Sending away your own child to be raised by others is not an easy thing to forgive yourself for," she murmured.

"Was that the first time you were in command and facing possibly-fatal circumstances?"

Her wry amusement overtook angst, her lips twisting into a half-smile. "Having a child changes everything. I know you don't feel that you have one yet. That will change."

"Right. Some little wild thing will instill such a rush of paternal instinct that I'll actually enjoy explaining to people how come she's got a crinkly nose and Beverly doesn't." Our earlier conversation had made me too aware that Deanna could read me easily, and in my nervousness I'd gotten careless.

Her own cares faded rapidly from her face. She stared at me, the goddess of Unfathomable Expressions That Mean Something, and I waited for the slap across the face, or for her to get up and march stiffly away rather than dignify it with a response.

"Does it embarrass you that she is half Bajoran?"

A shot to the gut. I was talking to a half Betazoid, for heaven's sake. Holding a less-than-half Betazoid son. "No. If I was going to have kids, which I would never have planned to do, I'd want to do it with Verly."

"Have you talked about it?"

"She doesn't want kids. Neither do I."

"Is that a voiced consensus, or just your perception?"

I shuffled and reshuffled the deck. "I know she doesn't."

"How? Did you discuss it with her?" I gave her an angry look. She opened her mouth, moving as if chewing on the words before she said them, and replied, "Why are you so afraid to let her love you?"

Part of me bristled at the accusation of fear but she had a way of being so quietly matter-of-fact about it that I couldn't be angry. Hiding behind a nose-scratch, I glanced at Beverly and found that she was going into the cockpit. I remembered the night we'd met, her tears and desperation, and the elation of finally seeing her smile in genuine pleasure.

"Why are you so convinced she'll stop loving you?" Deanna whispered.

In a shuttle, no one can run very far. Rather than charge madly away from the question as I wanted, I went back to solitaire. I hummed to myself while rearranging the cards and smiled in surprise at the tune I'd picked without thinking about it. I gathered the cards with a few sweeps of my hands and reshuffled the losing game. Deanna seemed content to wait for an answer; I decided to let the song be my answer, and dealt another row of solitaire for myself while singing as if it were a lullaby for Yves.

"He deals the cards as a meditation  
and those he plays never suspect,  
he doesn't play for the money he wins,  
he doesn't play for respect.

He deals the cards to find the answer,  
the sacred geometry of chance,  
the hidden law of a probable outcome,  
the numbers lead a dance.

I know that the spades are swords of a soldier  
I know that the clubs are weapons of war  
I know that diamonds mean money for this art  
But that's not the shape of my heart."

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed her smiling at me. I looked up, surprised, and she leaned closer, beckoning with a finger for me to do the same. Her words tickled my ear.

"Maybe if you stopped playing solitaire, it wouldn't be so much of a losing game. There's strength in numbers, you know."

She left me and went forward, disappearing into the cockpit.

Damned empath.

~^~^~^~^~

"Fear isn't a good reason," Jean-Luc was saying as Deanna came in. "It's understandable, but you can't justify acting on it."

Beverly sat in the chair to the left, a hand to her head as if she suffered a headache. "I keep going back and forth -- it's going to drive me crazy. When I'm with him, I'm sure of him. I have to be objective about this." She kept her voice low as Jean-Luc's; they'd been conversing quietly for some time, Deanna guessed.

Yves whimpered, startling the doctor; Jean-Luc merely glanced up at Deanna. She sidled to his chair and leaned on the arm. "This wasn't what you told me yesterday."

Beverly gaped at her. "You said I should think it through, I've been doing that. I don't know if I can live with the uncertainty. The Section is all about keeping secrets -- what if he really hasn't changed?"

"What if he has?" She handed the baby to Jean-Luc, leaning low enough to brush the side of his head with a breast. He glanced sharply at her.

"My cousin is coming with my mother, did I tell you?" she said.

"Which one?"

"Guess."

"Walima?"

"What makes you think that?"

"It's the way my luck runs. She's the only cousin who's potentially more of a nuisance than your mother."

Deanna smiled, glanced at Beverly, and patted the back of Jean-Luc's head -- in the company of others, a safe gesture only when he was holding the baby. "She likes you."

"Which is precisely why she's dangerous. Terrible thing, to be liked by a Troi."

"I know. You suffer so much because of it, don't you?"

"Here's a prime example -- one of them just handed me a baby who needs a new diaper."

"It's your turn." She sat in his place after he took Yves out.

"I'm tempted to go watch," Beverly murmured.

"Can't believe he'd do it? Or did you want pictures for future blackmail?" Deanna checked the shuttle's course and watched the sensors for a moment.

"I almost backed out of coming."

The confession got Deanna's attention. Beverly looked across the cockpit at her, the redness around her eyes finally visible now that she did so. "But you didn't."

"But I wanted to -- I don't know if I can do this, Dee. She's half Bajoran -- probably a war orphan."

Deanna laughed, sinking into the chair.

"What's so funny?"

"You, expecting normal from a starship captain."

"He's not even normal for a captain."

"You like the unusual. You have a habit of falling for 'interesting' men. If I were still a counselor, we could discuss the possibility of your having such a fear of commitment that you perpetually choose men you perceive as unavailable or unsuitable."

"But you're not a counselor," Beverly whispered, though she sounded like she'd rather shout. "And I don't perceive them as unsuitable, they *become* that way!"

Deanna shot her a disbelieving look. "Do they? Or is it that once you really know someone and find he's got a flaw -- or something you perceive as potentially causing difficulty in the future -- you panic?"

"I suppose you haven't fallen for anyone who could be considered unavailable or unsuitable?"

As an answer, Deanna slapped her hand on a panel, her wedding ring striking the thin metal with a crack. "Not recently," she said stiffly. Raising her head, she eyed the doctor down her nose. "People change, Beverly, but they have to want to do it. Change can be hard, can feel almost impossible -- but it can happen to any of us."

"Why are you playing these head games with me?"

"I won't sit back and watch you think yourself into retreating to work and ignoring the problem -- again. If you don't give it more time you'll fret incessantly over what might have happened if you stayed. You don't think I knew how many doubts and second thoughts you had after Odan?"

Beverly threw herself back in the chair and made a frustrated noise. They rode in silence. When Jean-Luc returned some ten minutes later, she glanced at him. "Here, you can have my chair."

He watched her leave, recovered from his surprise, and sat, Yves in his lap. "What's she so upset about?"

"She doesn't like guerilla counseling."

"I thought you weren't going to get involved in their business."

They looked at each other over the length of the main console. The yellow, red and green indicators cast their light on Jean-Luc's face; the overhead light was dimmed, making the blurred stars on the viewports all the brighter.

"Noodge," Jean-Luc mumbled.

"Tom's good at hiding his feelings but he's nearer the breaking point all the time. She wouldn't be so afraid if he weren't pushing her away."

"Why would he do that?"

"He's not doing it on purpose." Deanna watched their son wave a fist. "He's always been a loner. Letting her in was, in a way, the hardest thing he's ever done."

Jean-Luc nodded, dropping his gaze to Yves and smiling. "I'd say letting her stay in is the hardest thing. Intimacy can be frightening. He's just revealed more of himself than she'd known before, and it's not something you expect anyone to like."

"Was letting me in difficult?"

He raised his head. One eyebrow twitched. "I suspect that it was a mere formality -- you knew more about me than anyone else, by then. Was it difficult for you?"

She could have easily said yes and dismissed the question, but easy was something they didn't make a habit of being. "Only for a while. But tension is a normal part of the beginnings of a relationship. Part of the excitement lies in the suspense of getting to know someone."

"When we get to the station, there's something I'd like to try."

"What's that?"

"Well, you know your mother will probably appropriate Yves for a while when she arrives. I'd like to take advantage of that. We could put some suspense back into our relationship."

The computer beeped, drawing her attention to the readouts. She tapped in a few commands and the stars shifted. The station hung in space ahead of them, no bigger than an apple.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked, punching in their approach vector and reaching for the comm.

"I thought you liked surprises, Deebird."

"You know I do," she whispered. "Especially your surprises."

"Good."

She knew how happy that made him. As she contacted the station for docking instructions, she wished she felt so happy, but it was as it had been for days, as if she carried her own personal black hole to suck away the happiness she should feel. Glancing at her partial reflection in the curve of the viewport, she noticed a hint of the despair in her face and composed herself.

She eased the shuttle in gently. Powering down the engines as they matched the station's rotation speed and maneuvering in on thrusters only came as the result of an impulse. She felt foolish seconds after touchdown.

"You know, I think we have the wrong person at the helm these days," Jean-Luc said, rising as she began putting the systems on standby. He stopped, still in such a way that she knew he'd detected something amiss.

She made her fingers dance across the last few controls, turned the chair, and reached for Yves. As she took the baby, her eyes met Jean-Luc's. He waited. Finally, she identified the waiting -- it was a mirror of her own patience with someone who couldn't speak of something both parties knew was wrong. He knew it was more than she'd made it out to be.

The realization brought her to tears. At once, his hand came up, his thumb grazed her cheek, taking with it the moisture gathering on her lashes, and he gripped her shoulder.

"It's going to be all right," he whispered.

More tears, spilling too quickly to catch. She glanced nervously toward their passengers. He guided her to sit again, patted her shoulder, and left her there. While she hugged Yves the others talked, Tom laughed, Natalia offered to help carry baggage, and Beverly said nothing. Jean-Luc sent Natalia to carry the admiral's baggage and told Tom they'd see him and Beverly later.

He returned when all was quiet. "Let's go see what a few extra credits will get you in the way of housing."

"All right." She followed him, watched him shoulder their bags, and took the baby's from him. "I'm sorry."

He sighed, mouth tilted in an incredulous half-wince. "I hope you didn't think I wouldn't notice. Come on, this isn't the place to discuss it."

~^~^~^~^~

The station was as I remembered it, almost. Lots of Bajorans and Starfleet milling around, and a fair share of aliens, including some I didn't recognize. Traffic through the wormhole had increased. And then there were the Romulans. As we reached our rooms, two of them passed us in the corridor. Beverly glanced at them then at me as she reached for the lock panel.

She was being too quiet. I noticed as we put away a few things and checked out the rooms that her hands shook. I got myself something to drink from the replicator as she meandered over to the window and stared out at where the wormhole should be.

"Nice room," I commented, waving the glass at our surroundings and stepping up next to her. She looked at me at long last. The red eyes were a shocker. Though she winced when I brushed her hair back from her face, she didn't turn away.

"I love you," I said, reaching for her. "I'm sorry."

"I'm afraid," she blurted. Suddenly we were wrapped around each other -- no more stiffness or awkwardness, as there had been since my untimely revelation.

"I'm terrified. Can't let it get to me. Don't have time for it."

"What am I going to do with you?" The catch in her voice as she spoke against my shoulder told me she was crying. "I'm trying -- I am, but the Section -- "

"Sssh. Don't mention them. Not here, not now. We'll be all right for a while yet. Come sit down and have something to eat, and let's talk."

But we ate in silence, and sat at the table for a long time afterward staring out at where the wormhole would appear. It opened and closed twice. She took my hand.

"I'm glad you're here, Beverly. I don't know if I could get through this alone."

"No man is an island."

"But we can get good at pretending, can't we?"

She turned from the window. "Too good. I'm sorry I'm so upset."

"You have a right to be. I should have told you before now."

"Are you ready to go see her?"

"Her." I found myself squeezing her fingers too hard. Nervousness -- bane of the Section agent. But I'd never been trained for this. I still had no idea how she could be mine, or who the mother could be.

"You might have to name her." She got up, pulling me after her, and I went along. "What do you think?"

"I don't know." She had no name that anyone knew; the girl hadn't spoken to anyone, in any language. "First thing that comes to mind is naming her after someone. Mom, Grandmother, maybe. . . . I don't know."

"We could name her after my mother."

Something about that suggestion killed me on the spot. My feet wouldn't leave the floor. Beverly wrapped herself around me and endured my struggle against tears and my attempts to break her ribs.

It took a while to get out the door, but when we did, I glanced at her in the harsh bright light of the corridor and laughed. "We're the red-eye twins."

"You've got a strange idea of togetherness. But at least we're together."

I slowed, dragging her back to me, and held her again. It didn't do away with the fear, but she filled a void I'd carried with me for years. There's something the counselors have documented -- officers who've set aside emotional ties for years to pursue career goals have a higher incidence of clinical depression. Humans are social animals. We're wired to be that way, and though we can override our instincts for extended periods of time, it just isn't healthy to wall ourselves away from our fellow man. It makes for a psychological mess to let yourself become isolated completely. I'd come too close. My own personal void I'd long thought to be imperative. I could rationalize the distance by thinking of it as a safety measure, keeping my family and anyone else I let myself care about insulated and ignorant so the Section would have no reason to even suspect they might know more.

"Verly," I murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry."

"Quit apologizing already."

"Yes, sir."

She pulled away, slapping my chest. "When are you going to loosen up and wear civvies?"

"In a while."

We left the habitat ring and were soon meandering along the promenade toward the infirmary. I saw the Romulans again, among those out for a stroll. They didn't look at me. I knew who they were. Surprising to see Toreth -- the war had taken its toll on Romulan forces. She was still in command of her own ship, from the uniform, and the man with her must have been an officer. Body language of Romulans was one of my former topics of study, and theirs said business. I wondered what kind.

"Oh," Beverly gasped.

I turned about out of habit, stopping her and myself as if to have a little conversation out of the main flow of traffic about some jewelry hanging on a rack outside a store. "Oh, what? Something wrong?"

Her eyes met mine. She recovered from her startlement at my action. "Jean-Luc. He's over there talking to a woman."

"Uh, so?"

She rolled her eyes. "He's not just talking to her. It's. . . oh, hell, just look over there, to your right on the other side of the promenade next to the jumja kiosk."

I glanced over my shoulder. There he was, out of uniform now, smiling and looking quite pleased to see the dark-haired woman he was talking to. The woman was Betazoid, a little taller than Deanna -- if Dee cut her hair off to just shy of shoulder length and ironed out the curls, she'd be a ringer for her. Except it seemed to me this woman was a bit older -- a few more lines in the face. She wore a loose flowing purple dress, very Betazoid-ladies-leisure-wear, and seemed happy to see Jean-Luc. While I watched, she laid a hand on his arm and leaned closer as if conspiring. He laughed. I turned back to Bev before the pair could notice me gawking.

"Got to be family."

Beverly gave me a 'what the hell' glance. "That's not her mother."

"Family can mean aunts, too. Notice the strong resemblance?"

"Dee doesn't have any aunts. I'm going over there. He's seen us," she murmured, suddenly smiling as she dodged around me. Sighing, I followed dutifully.

Jean-Luc gestured at us, and the woman turned around. Even her smile was reminiscent of Deanna. "Some friends," Jean-Luc was saying as we arrived. "Captain Thomas Glendenning and Doctor Beverly Crusher."

I nodded and smiled. The woman glanced at Beverly and tucked her arm through Jean-Luc's, leaning intimately to stage-whisper in his ear. "She thinks you're being a very bad husband, dear. Standing out in the promenade with a strange woman, laughing and talking this way."

"Uh," Beverly gasped, horrified.

Jean-Luc actually laughed. "It's a good thing Plitty didn't come, then. Relax, Beverly, this is Mwala Troi. One of Deanna's cousins."

"He's overjoyed that Walima canceled at the last moment and I came with Lwaxana instead," Mwala said.

"Stop that!" Jean-Luc cried, scowling.

"And just what's wrong with my sister Plitty?" Mwala exclaimed. She shoved him gently away. "She likes you."

"She. . . never mind. Where the hell is Lwaxana?" I hadn't seen him flustered this way before.

Mwala chuckled, winking at me and Beverly. I liked her already. "Lwaxana went looking for Deanna immediately, of course. I came looking for you. There wasn't a chance of holding the baby with Lwaxana in the room, anyway. We'll be lucky if she lets go of him some time today."

"I'll bet she made things interesting for the other passengers on the transport from Betazed," Beverly said, grinning.

"Interesting doesn't begin to describe it." Mwala's eyes fell on me, and the amusement faded from them. "Are you all right, Captain?"

"Fine, why?"

She never looked more like Deanna than in that instant, in which she became enigmatic and changed the subject. Smiling once more, she gestured at the store behind Jean-Luc. "You came here to get something?"

He blinked, glanced over his shoulder, and stepped out with the alacrity of a man who'd been caught. "Oh, no, I was merely on my way back to Deanna -- I went to ops, to speak to Colonel Kira. Coming back with me?"

"See you later," Beverly called after them. Jean-Luc turned back to wave and smile -- he looked nervous. Mwala glanced back as well, but she was close to laughter. The two of them got lost in the increasing foot traffic on the promenade.

"Nice lady. Even if she gets a bit snoopy."

"You haven't met Lwaxana yet. I get the feeling Mwala is like Deanna in more than just looks, though I'm sure Dee wouldn't tease him about shopping there." She obviously knew what the windowless storefront with cryptic red glyphs painted on the gray plating was.

"You know, I don't remember seeing a Risan store here before," I commented as we resumed our walk toward the infirmary. "Maybe I'll come back later and get you something."

"As long as it's not. . . ."

I didn't like the way she trailed away like that. Slowing, I watched her face, trying to meet her nervous eyes. "Not. . . ."

"I really liked your gifts," she began, taking a deep breath, "but I don't like peach."

"Oh. All the more reason to get you something else, then. Since it's Risan I'm not likely to find any peach anything. So what *does* Verly like?"

She seemed startled by my attitude. "Maybe I should just give you a list of definite dislikes, and let you surprise me."

"If it's what you want. I keep telling you, just let me know what you want."

We made it down the Promenade without further incident. Bashir greeted us happily as we entered the infirmary. Probably couldn't wait to get the kid out of his hair. "Captain -- Dr. Crusher, how nice to see you again."

"Likewise. I'm Captain Glendenning's CMO. I reviewed the girl's file and since she'll be under my care, I thought I'd come see her for myself. I understand the child hasn't spoken?" Beverly had to be nervous. It would explain her sudden clinical tone.

"No, and it's apparently psychological. There's no physical reason for it. I'm surprised you didn't bring your ship's counselor along. . . ." Bashir's dark eyes flicked from Beverly to me and back.

I debated, then risked it. Beverly didn't flinch away from my hand on her back, but I felt her muscles stiffen. "We had our reasons. Are you sure of your identification? There's no way she could be the child of a relative of mine -- say, a sibling?"

"Sibling? Do you have a reason to suspect that, Captain?"

"I just want to know if the possibility is there."

"There's a chance. I would need DNA samples for comparison from your parents and siblings to rule it out. The process would actually be easier because she's half-Bajoran -- we only have one set of human genes to match. We brought her to my office, Counselor Dax is with her -- shall we?" Bashir's dark eyes questioned me for a second before he turned to lead us in.

The girl stood at the end of Bashir's desk looking at the counselor, a short-haired woman sitting in one of the guest chairs. The woman looked up -- a Trill, from the spots -- and smiled. Bashir introduced us to her. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl, once I'd looked at her. She stared, so blank I could swear she'd been hypnotized.

The faint ridges down her nose were the only visible sign of Bajoran ancestry. She had straight wheat-colored hair, cut unevenly to shoulder length, and luminous blue eyes. Sinclair eyes -- my mother's contribution to the Glendenning gene pool. No Bajoran had eyes like that. I don't think blue is genetically possible for them.

I took slow steps forward, trying to find something to say, ready for her to flee and hoping she wouldn't. I wasn't prepared for her lunge toward me. Or the familiar icicle piercing my abdominal wall.

Shock does weird things to your perception. I heard Beverly shouting as if from parsecs away, down a long tube. I raised my hand and saw my own blood on it before I realized I'd put it to my side. The floor slapped my cheek before I knew I was falling.

In the tunnel vision of lapsing consciousness, I saw the girl looking down at me, a bloody blade protruding from the sleeve of the too-large gray jumpsuit she wore, no emotion in her heart-shaped face. Was this how those I'd dispatched had perceived me in their last moments?

If she was mine, she was a chip off the old block, all right.

~^~^~^~^~

"Mother."

Lwaxana hummed and swayed with Yves in her arms, dancing slowly around the space in front of the ovoid viewport. The rooms had a lovely view of the docking ring and a Klingon warbird drifting at about the same speed as the station rotated, just low enough to be seen. The juxtaposition of elements, her mother in bright electric blue carrying Yves and crooning Betazoid lullabies in a Federation base built by Cardassians as four Klingon ships, one Romulan vessel, and a variety of Starfleet vessels drifted by, gave Deanna a momentary pause. She smiled in wry amusement and tried again.

"Mother."

"Yes, dear," she replied absently.

"What are you doing?"

She stopped humming. "Getting to know my lovely, lovely grandson. He's just perfect, dear."

"You said that when you got here."

"Deanna," she chided, tsking as she brought the baby back. She stood over Deanna's chair. "What's wrong?"

"He's hungry."

"He's not -- " Lwaxana looked down in dismay when Yves began to fuss. Deanna went to the replicator without further discussion and took her son across the room, settling on the curved sofa along the wall.

Her mother left the table and chairs to join her. Deanna looked up from feeding the baby to see her mother sitting with hands folded in her lap, atypically solemn. "I'm sorry, Mother. I've just been so tired. We had a very difficult mission right before Yves was born. I had to attend the debriefings even though I'm on leave and discuss some of the decisions I made while I was in command."

"I understand, dear, but this is more than being tired." Lwaxana wrung her hands, then nodded sadly, as if resigning herself to something. "I know you too well. There's something amiss. I realize that I've been an atypical mother, and that sometimes you are frustrated by things I do or say, but I've always thought that I've been the sort of mother you could talk to when you have a problem."

"You are, but. . . but I can't talk about this yet."

Her mother's hand fell on her knee. "Is it Jean-Luc?"

"No," Deanna said, watching the bubbles in the formula and the way Yves' fingers lay against the clear bottle. "There's really nothing. . . . Mother, you talked to him before you came here. Didn't you?"

"I didn't know there was anything wrong with speaking to my own son-in-law."

"Did he call you? What did he tell you?"

Her mother rose and paced restlessly, hugging herself. "Nothing. I could see he was worried, that's all, there's a certain look he gets -- "

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying," she exclaimed indignantly.

"Mother! What did he tell you?"

The door opened, and Deanna was treated to the extraordinary sight of her mother hurrying across the room and departing with a bemused Mwala without saying a word. Jean-Luc stared at the closed door as if he couldn't believe it either.

"What did you tell Mother before she came?" Deanna said. Yves finished the bottle. Setting it aside, she sat him up on her knee and patted his back. He hiccuped and burped.

Jean-Luc ran his hand over his head. "What makes you think I told her anything?"

"Jean!"

He approached as if she were a wild animal, slowly and warily. "Only that I've been worried about you. That you've not been the same since our last mission."

Yves wiggled his arms and grunted; she brought him to her chest automatically, curling her arm around him. "We need to talk."

"I know." He sat with her, looking at the baby. "Whatever it is, we'll work it out. It's more than just balancing career and family, I know you better than that. You don't think I know when you're dodging my questions?"

"It isn't something that can be worked out, Jean. It's not something you or I can change."

"All right," he said, keeping his eyes on the baby.

She watched him so pointedly not watching her and felt guilt over the last week of brooding silence. "How long have you known I was keeping something from you?"

"I suspected five days ago. I knew three days ago. Beverly says post-partum depression but I don't think so. I wanted you to tell me in your own time. You've always given me the freedom to keep things to myself. I knew you would tell me eventually."

Deanna chewed her lip briefly, then took Yves into the bedroom and tucked him into the carrier that doubled as his bed while they traveled. He was sleepy anyway. She left the carrier centered on the bed and returned. Jean-Luc waited patiently as she'd left him. She sat again, pulled her legs up beneath her and kissed his cheek.

"I'm sorry I haven't been forthcoming."

"What is it, cygne? What could keep you from talking to me about something that's bothering you for so long?"

"I didn't want to tell you until I knew more about. . . . The radiation on Ba'ku did more damage than good." Tears spilled as she worked at keeping her voice even. "Dr. Mengis noticed an enlargement of one of my ovaries when I was in for one of my followup appointments, the day after we left the Briar Patch."

The pause drew long. While she steadied herself, he waited, sliding an arm around her.

"After he diagnosed the enlargement as a tumor, we discussed my prognosis. I asked him to remove both ovaries. He put the unaffected one into stasis and biopsied the damaged one. Unless he finds a way to reverse the cellular reaction to the metaphasic radiation, leaving the other in stasis is the only way to prevent its becoming cancerous."

As she spoke, he drew her head to his chest. She leaned on him with a fold of his soft white shirt beneath her cheek. His sympathetic hurt had begun; it was as tangible to her as his arms, tightening like bands of duranium around her. Sympathy was the last thing she wanted, from anyone. At least he wouldn't just pity her -- the loss was his pain as well.

"He's monitoring the rest of the crew closely for any similar changes. He hopes he can put the ovary back after he's researched things more thoroughly. But in the meantime I have to have hormone injections, and it's problematic because of my mixed parentage. Part of my mood is simply that -- the dosage isn't quite right yet. And I feel. . . incomplete. Part of me is missing."

"I understand," he whispered, caressing her hair, and under her ear she heard the faint hum of his artificial heart that never beat. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"We'll have as many children as you want. It doesn't matter how. There are other options even if Mengis can't replace the ovary."

The conviction he felt spoke more to her than the words. Smiling, she rested in his arms. "I know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I needed to live with it for a while first." He understood that, too.

"It isn't fair," she murmured into his shirt.

"We never hear about the price heroes pay to be heroes, do we?"

The sadness he felt lapped over her, as if she were sitting in the shallows of a great ocean and the tide had turned. "Heroes?"

"Think about all the people you idolized when you were young. All the officers they held up to classes of cadets as examples. They never tell you what those officers sacrificed to accomplish great things."

She started to respond, but his communicator beeped. Jean-Luc sat back to touch his badge, which he wore in a fold of his shirt.

"Picard here."

"Jean-Luc," Beverly gasped. "Tom's been hurt."

"Where are you?"

"The infirmary. Dr. Bashir just rushed him into surgery."

"We'll be right there."

They found Mwala and Lwaxana in the corridor on their way out. "Mother, something's come up -- can you take care of Yves for a while?" Deanna asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Of course, we'd be delighted!" She sounded genuinely excited, but Deanna saw the knowing glance at Jean-Luc. Oh, well. Let her think this was something designed to fix 'what's wrong.'

When they got to the infirmary, Beverly was pacing around, obviously distraught. She rushed them and hesitated then turned away to pace again.

"What happened?" Jean-Luc asked. Deanna noticed Bashir and two assistants wearing scrubs and working over the bed at the other end of the infirmary. Surgery.

Beverly came back to them. "The girl happened. She stabbed him! She's a vicious little monster," she exclaimed, clenching her left hand around a fistful of her dark blue tunic.

"A misunderstanding," Deanna said. "If you were right -- if she's a war orphan -- think of what she must have been through."

"She didn't stab the counselor," Beverly said, tight-voiced. "She didn't stab the doctor. Or me. She went for *him.* Like she knew exactly who he was."

"Where is she?"

"Counselor Dax is with her, in Bashir's office."

"Will Tom be all right?" Jean-Luc asked.

Beverly lost some of the stiffness, but now seemed about to cry. "Yes. It wasn't that bad. Mostly tissue damage, no major organs hit. The blade glanced off a rib. She's not that strong, either. But. . . he just fell over. I've seen our security chief batter him with all his strength in the gym and Tom's never fallen."

Deanna turned at the sound of someone approaching. This must be Ezri Dax -- she was like all joined Trill, a melange of personalities that could confuse. She was all at once young and relatively inexperienced, yet older than anyone Deanna had met -- the symbiont had obviously been passed along many times. At the moment, the young side of her dominated. A puzzled frown creased her face, interrupted by brief surprise.

"Captain Picard?"

"The captain is a friend of mine and Tom's," Beverly said. "This is his first officer, Deanna Troi."

"I thought so. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you -- I've read a couple of your papers, Commander. I know you're not a counselor any more but. . . could I see you for a moment?"

Deanna exchanged a surprised glance with Jean-Luc. She felt Beverly's eyes as she followed Ezri back to the room in which the girl had been confined. Outside the closed door, they stopped.

"Is something wrong?"

"I've worked with traumatized children before. This is different. When this girl came here, she didn't say anything or show any emotional response to anything we said or did. Now she's crying and confused, and she doesn't seem to remember anything." Ezri keyed in an access code. "I hesitate to diagnose this without a second opinion. It almost seems to be a multiple personality disorder. I've read about that but never seen it before. Have you ever seen a case?"

The girl sat in front of the desk on the floor, hugging herself and sobbing. She unfolded and scrambled to the corner, pounding on the wall. "Momma," she wailed.

"Who is your mother?" Deanna asked.

The girl stopped slapping and pounding. Her intense blue eyes held only fear and tears. She stared, then raced to hide behind the desk.

Deanna moved around the obstacle, stopping two meters from the girl. "No one's going to hurt you. What's your name?"

Even the sobbing had stopped. She ducked under the desk until only the tip of a shoe showed.

"I know you're afraid. I know you are confused and don't know where you are. What's your name?" Deanna kept up the questions, leaving pauses between them. "Do you remember what happened? Do you know who the man was?"

Leaning slowly, so very slowly, Deanna finally reached a position from which she could see under the desk. The girl hugged her legs, buried her face in her knees, and trembled. When Deanna pulled one of her arms, she went limp and let herself be dragged out. Deanna supported the girl's shoulders, startled by the way she let her head roll back and by the perceptible terror at odds with her complete surrender. Kneeling, Deanna put her arms around the girl and let her head rest on her shoulder.

"Talk to me, petite," she murmured, stroking the girl's hair.

The girl made a plaintive sound and turned to push her nose into Deanna's shoulder. "They killed Momma," she whispered, starting to cry again.

"What's your name?" Deanna smoothed the fine hair out of the girl's face.

"Lora."

Picking her up, Deanna let her cling and cry. Ezri grabbed her arm when she tried to leave the room.

"Do you know what's wrong?"

"I want to test a theory."

Beverly's jaw dropped at the sight of Deanna carrying the girl. "Wait," she shouted when Deanna headed for Tom, whom she'd sensed was awake. He watched her approach, started to sit up, and fell back with a grimace.

"Lora, this is your father," Deanna said, turning to point the girl's eyes at him.

"What are you -- " Bashir lunged and stopped next to Ezri at the end of Tom's bed, glancing at her suspiciously, sizing up the situation. "You shouldn't be here," he insisted. "None of you should."

But Lora was caught up in the sight of her father, who stared back. Deanna sensed trepidation from both but nothing dangerous, so she put Lora down. Once on her own two feet, she lost courage and clung to Deanna's leg, but couldn't stop looking at Tom.

"Someone hurt him. Do you remember that?"

"No."

"Have you ever seen him before?"

"No."

"Have you ever seen Ezri before?" Deanna touched Lora's shoulder and indicated the counselor. Moving her head in short jerks, Lora looked at Ezri, then at Beverly and Jean-Luc standing behind the Trill and Bashir. Deanna could sense the initial terror wearing off. Lora had made the adjustment and recognized that this was a safe place, for the moment.

"No. Where am I?" She tugged at Deanna's shirt. "Why am I here?"

Deanna bent and took the girl's head in her hands. "Everything will be all right. No one's going to hurt you, Lora. I need you to take a deep breath and tell me about the last thing you remember before you woke up in the room we were just in. All right? There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all."

The wide blue eyes shimmered, then tears tumbled over her pale cheeks. Lora's lips moved but nothing came out. "Momma," she gasped finally. "Them."

"What did they look like?"

Her fingers tightened on Deanna's shirt. She tried to climb, so Deanna picked her up again. "Like them," she whispered, pointing at Ezri and Bashir.

"You mean the uniform? The clothing?"

She nodded and hid her face in Deanna's neck.

"Shit," Tom murmured. This time, in spite of whatever made him grimace, he pushed himself up.

"Captain," Bashir exclaimed. "You just had surgery. It wasn't a serious wound but it was bad enough -- "

"I've been hurt worse and gone on duty. Deanna, give her to me."

Lora's arms tightened around Deanna's neck. "Lora, he's your father. He won't hurt you."

"No," she cried, clinging as Tom took her. "No!"

Between the two of them they pried Lora free and Tom sat her in his lap, putting his arms around her. At least he had enough comfort with children to not be afraid of holding her, even though she fought it. Deanna silenced the doctor's further protest with a glare and herded all four onlookers away from them.

"Ezri, what do you know about brainwashing and recovering from it?"

Jean-Luc had expected it. Of the other three, Ezri was the first to recover from shock, her face twisting in anger. "Who would do that to a child?"

"The same ones who killed her mother," Jean-Luc said grimly. "I can only think of one explanation."

Deanna glanced over her shoulder. Tom had the girl sitting next to him on the biobed, an arm around her. "I can think of several. We may have to come up with a new methodology for this. I've dealt with brainwashing before but always with adults."

"I don't know what's more disturbing to me," Bashir said quietly, arms crossed, staring at father and daughter with burning eyes. "That someone would do such a thing to a little girl, or that he was so quick to recognize it."

"Tom said he had contacted you," Jean-Luc said.

Bashir turned, startled. "Yes. About a mutual acquaintance."

"Sloan," Deanna said.

Ezri moaned. "Not again. Julian, not this again."

"Are you insinuating that the captain is -- what are you telling me?" Bashir exclaimed. He met Deanna's eyes and challenged her to explain.

"Tom wanted to find out what you know about Sloan and his organization," Deanna murmured. She sensed the intense anger from the doctor and backed away from him out of reflex.

"Not nearly enough to be useful. What does **he** know? What about you?"

"We should wait for Tom to discuss it," Jean-Luc said, making it an order. "You believe the girl was programmed to kill him? How do we know that won't happen again?"

"We don't. But I sense no malice, only fear and confusion. For the moment she's fine, and Tom's quite capable of restraining her if that changes. Without a weapon I doubt she could inflict much damage." Deanna sighed and turned to Ezri. "I took a shortcut, but under the circumstances I thought it was warranted. I don't normally rely so heavily on my empathy to diagnose but we have little time, if this was more than an experiment. We have a good chance of helping her recover what she's forgotten -- how long was she in the orphanage?"

"Just a few weeks. There's not much to her file. We've been unable to identify her mother but that's not unusual given the post-Occupation state of Bajoran records." Ezri glanced at Bashir, shrugging uncomfortably. "Are you suggesting that the Sect -- "

"It wouldn't be surprising if they did have something to do with this, but as Captain Picard has said, it would be best if we waited and discussed the details with Tom." Deanna watched Tom take the girl out of sight. Hopefully, that was a good sign.

~^~^~^~^~

I knew what Deanna was doing, dumping the kid on me and dodging out of the way, but I didn't appreciate it. Those first few minutes of excruciating discomfort with a wild-eyed kid I had to acknowledge as mine were difficult. I was supposed to reassure the kid and hopefully establish the beginnings of some sort of trust between us. I couldn't hold what she'd done to me against her -- she didn't remember it. That sounded like something the Section would arrange. I filed the thought away for later. Putting the girl next to me, I kept an arm around her and patted her shoulder.

She didn't want to look at my face. I rubbed her back, told her lies -- that I was happy she was there, that she was beautiful, positive things that a kid like her probably never heard. She wasn't pretty. I knew now who her mother must have been, and still, it escaped me how I could possibly be her father. She had Toma Bejal's face -- broad forehead, sharp chin, and that odd dark stripe along her hairline that I gathered had something to do with Bajoran ethnicity. Bejal had had one too.

The pain meds were wearing off. It made me less hazy, but the familiar post-surgical throb started in my side. I didn't realize I was rubbing the spot until Lora touched the back of my hand.

"She said you were hurt."

"I was. I'm all right."

She touched my face -- her fingers tickled my cheek, traced along my nose. "Are you really my father?"

From the instant Deanna brought her in, she'd been closed, suspicious, afraid, but not now. Her wistful question brought up several of my own. Now that she wasn't terrified, she didn't seem the type of child one would expect her to be. Bejal had been Section but also Maquis. The stamp of such a background was absent in Lora.

As she explored my face by touch and with wide but unafraid eyes, I studied her. This child, small for her age and too thin, with a faint jagged scar down the left side of her neck, was alone in the universe but for me. I was all that stood between her and consignment to the orphanages.

"Would you like that?"

"I don't know." Her sharp look surprised me. "They said you're a captain. What's that?"

I described what I did in simple terms. By the time I finished a discourse on Starfleet, the Federation, and humanity, I knew she was bright from the questions she asked. Turning off the translator for a few minutes proved my theory --she spoke in flawless Standard. She may be scarred, but someone other than Bejal had been instrumental in her upbringing. Bejal had relied on translators. After the war, Bejal must've gone completely Section.

"Would you like to live on a starship?"

Lora thought about it, glancing around the room. "Can I have something to eat?"

"Let's see what we can find."

I found the doctor's office. No one home -- they were all out in main sickbay. I showed her the replicator. "What do you want to eat?"

She looked at me in confusion, as if the question of what she wanted had never occurred to her before. I replicated a favorite of mine when I was a kid, the smell of the tuna bringing back memories of Mom in the dance studio drilling students while I sat in the back office doing homework and eating whatever she'd brought for me.

We sat in the two chairs facing Bashir's desk, the plate in her lap. Lora picked up the top slice of bread and peered at the contents of the sandwich. I showed her how to hold it. On her first bite her eyes popped open wide; she chewed, swallowed, and stuffed as much as she could into her mouth.

"Hey, slow down, Chip -- you don't have to eat it all at once. One bit at a time." Her blink and the cessation of chewing made me smile. "It's just a nickname. You could say nicknames are a family tradition. My mother had nicknames for all her kids and most of her friends. I have four sisters, did you know that? Your aunts. They'll like you." After they got over the shock of her existence, that is. I could hear my nieces and nephews asking about where Lora's mother was and if I'd bring her home, too.

Lora put the sandwich back on the plate. "Are they on your starship?"

"No. Just. . . Beverly. You'll like her." I glanced over my shoulder --speak of the devil, Beverly stood in the door, looking uncertain. "There she is."

Lora tore off a bit of bread, scooped up tuna with it, and poked it in her mouth as she looked where I pointed. She returned to her meal without undue alarm. Beverly came in slowly, dropping a hand on my shoulder.

"You're not supposed to be out of bed, Tom."

Snorting, I flicked my fingers across the front of the gown as if dismissing it. "I'm fine. Besides, Lora's teaching me how to eat a tuna fish sandwich."

"Is she?" Beverly smiled tentatively at the girl. "You like the sandwich, Lora?"

Her tone got too falsely-cheerful. Lora shot a suspicious glance at her and hunched over the sandwich as if protecting it.

"I'm going to change out of this," I said, pushing myself to my feet. The thin gown felt wrong, too loose and revealing. "Eat the rest of it and wait here, all right?"

Beverly came with me. "You shouldn't be walking around like this."

"It wasn't serious. I'm on leave, I'll take things easy, I'll be fine." We came out into the main infirmary. Deanna had gone somewhere with the station counselor. Jean-Luc looked up from a conversation with Bashir, arms crossed, and the doctor jerked around as if we'd snuck up on him.

"You shouldn't be up -- "

"Doctor, I'm perfectly aware of what I should and should not do. Why was Lora allowed access to a knife?"

Bashir blinked and rallied. "She wasn't, to my knowledge. Ezri let her sleep in her quarters at first, but she got out and wandered the station at night. We kept her in one of the rooms here in the infirmary, but she's quite the escape artist. She isn't strong enough to pry a ventilation grill from the wall, yet she did just that. I have no idea where she hid the knife."

I remembered her grip on my arm, and thought he was right -- she wasn't strong enough. That meant someone let her out. "Has anyone besides you been in to see her?"

"Ezri, but she's been trying to get her to talk." He eyed me warily. "Why?"

"That kid doesn't remember what she did. Someone used her to get to me."

"That's what we were thinking," Beverly said, speaking in the same quiet way I'd been talking. "But why?"

"There's no way they meant for her to kill me. If I was supposed to die, they wouldn't have sent a kid. This was a warning. The timing's off -- where did she come from, and why now? Are you absolutely certain she's mine?"

"I could run another series of tests, if you're going to be that skeptical," Bashir said, in a huff at what he probably perceived as a slight.

I took a few steps, looming over him. He almost backed into the end of a bed. "You were genetically enhanced as a child. That was years ago. That technology advances, whether it's moral or not, and a recent adventure of ours would lead us to believe that a certain group may have found a way to rewrite genetics entirely. I'm going to get myself a uniform, you and Dr. Crusher are going to run some more tests."

"What about Lora?" Picard asked. He was too interested in an answer. Too intense. He didn't give away anything when I glanced at him questioningly.

"We'll figure that out."

I went to the changing area tucked away in a corner and dressed, then went to get the girl. I entered Bashir's office, fastening the last pip on my collar, and stared at the plate sitting on the chair. A quick survey revealed her escape route. The ventilation shaft was near the floor, alongside the desk. I hefted the grill that lay on the floor -- too heavy. Sticking my head in the opening, I saw that the Cardassians hadn't designed the air shafts with the baffles and filters a Starfleet construction would have. The girl was long gone.

Before anything else, I studied the office with an eye trained to detect the smallest discrepancies. Nothing out of place. No marks on the grill, no sign of a lever. I doubted she had pried it free using only her fingers.

Had they taken her or just helped her escape? Had she been beamed out and the grill removed as a decoy? I straightened, sighing, and wished that just once things could be simpler.

The others looked up in surprise when I rushed out past them. "She's gone, in the ventilation system."

"Again?" Bashir exclaimed sharply.

I spun about. "She had help. Someone wants her to disappear."

"But she was in. . . ." Bashir's mouth hung open, then shut. He was a little slow for being genetically enhanced, but idealists tend to be that way when it comes to subterfuge. Especially young ones.

"I thought you said you'd dealt with them before," I murmured, conscious of the noise drifting in from the promenade.

"Why would they toy with you this way?"

"They want something, obviously."

"Or perhaps she wanted a jumja stick," Jean-Luc said nonchalantly. I turned around to find Lora standing in the infirmary entrance, sucking on a jumja.

"Lora, come here."

She came at a walk. Unafraid, she looked up at me, the sticky mass leaving a brown ring around her mouth.

"Tom?"

Deanna's voice shook me out of the daze. She had come back into the infirmary. My eyes met hers. Ezri, hovering at her side, glanced back and forth between us.

"You shouldn't leave her alone, Tom," Deanna said, chiding. "She's only a child. Take care of your daughter."

Lora blinked, looked at Deanna's face, then at mine. For a moment I thought she would go to Dee; she looked lost, frightened, and ready to cry. Her wide eyes dropped to the jumja stick in her hand. She took a step. And another.

Toward me. Her fingers closed around two of mine. The pleading look she gave me played on those old heart strings of mine like a master violinist.

"You won't go away?" she whispered.

"Um. . . ."

"You won't let them take me?"

The plea almost dropped me as effectively as the knife to the gut had earlier. It burned away the vestiges of hopelessness and kindled a deep, virulent hatred for Section 31 that hadn't been there in years.

"No," I said, holding out my arms.

~^~^~^~^~

Deanna eyed the results of her shopping trip that afternoon. In an unusual show of determination, the reason for which she couldn't yet discern, Jean-Luc had insisted on a new dress for the ball, discarding the idea of her wearing the dress uniform she'd brought. The dress hung with her mother's near the door, still in its protective wrapping. She divided her attention between imagining what might have prompted him to encourage her to purchase such a dress for an official function, and feeding her son.

"Deanna."

She looked up to find Mwala standing over her. "Yes?"

Mwala took the chair next to her, that Lwaxana had left not long before. "I am concerned."

"Why?" Deanna shifted the baby to a more comfortable position.

"Your mother is also concerned. Neither one of us has intentionally read anyone's thoughts, but it does not take a telepath to see there is something going on, and some of the things we sense worry us."

"I don't think you need to worry." Deanna began to contemplate retreat to her quarters. She'd brought Yves to her mother's rooms for a visit while Jean-Luc was off somewhere. If Mwala was going to question her about 'what was going on,' perhaps the baby needed a nap.

"Your friend, that captain -- Glendenning? There is something odd about him. His mind -- "

"You said you weren't prying," Deanna exclaimed. "Mwala, he's a captain. If he's hiding things it's probably classified Starfleet business."

Mwala frowned and smoothed her soft white tunic over her lap. "Jean-Luc doesn't have an artificial barrier in his mind. Nor does your friend Will Riker."

"Tom is probably part of special ops. Doesn't it seem reasonable for those who know classified information to take such precautions? Please don't pry this way -- if they knew you were, you might get into trouble. Especially Mother, she's an ambassador."

"I suppose," Mwala murmured, somewhat reassured by that reasoning. "It does make sense when you put it that way. And it does explain why Admiral Nechev's mind has a similar feel to it. But it doesn't explain the girl."

"It's Admiral Nechayev," Deanna corrected, wondering where Mwala had met the admiral. Probably somewhere on the station while wandering with Lwaxana. "What girl?"

"The one with Glendenning."

Deanna used burping Yves and fussing over him as a stalling mechanism while she thought quickly. "You do know Lora is half Bajoran? Her mother was in the Maquis. She evidently watched her mother die -- trauma sometimes causes disassociation, temporary amnesia and so forth. Many humanoids use such a mechanism to cope with great emotional stress. Tom's barrier is probably a deliberate use of the same ability. Lora will be in counseling to deal with the problem soon."

Homn came then with tall glasses of ebi'lan for them, and a plate of finger food. Mwala commented on Yves' eyes and the conversation turned to hybrid physiology and children in general.

But Deanna noticed her cousin's eyes never lost the questioning that had been present from the moment she sat down. Nor did she feel that her questions had been answered. A pang of guilt and despair gripped Deanna briefly; Mwala's gaze flicked to her face, then away as she reached for her glass and asked if there were plans for more children.

Deanna knew she could never deceive a telepath, especially one who knew her well. But Mwala didn't ask again, or even hint that she wanted more information -- politeness and a telepath's ethics dictated it.

Even so, as she finally made the excuse and took Yves back to the rented rooms she shared with Jean-Luc, Deanna's stomach threatened to reject what she'd just put in it. She hated asking her loved ones to participate in lies.

She hated more that she had no option but to do it.

~^~^~^~^~

The Admiralty Ball was usually a crashing bore. I found myself actually enjoying it this time -- well, just a few aspects of it, really.

For one thing, Beverly had put on a gorgeous backless shimmering blue gown which, while not completely form-fitting, managed to give away plenty of hints at the figure beneath it. The necklace I'd given her glittered at her throat. She'd also set aside her uncertainty and hesitance for the evening -- the bold, flirtatious woman I knew and loved came out to play. It was too bad that some of us thick-skulled men got too carried away with teasing and made her and Bell Sumners angry, thus sending them off to pursue conversation with the Klingon ambassador and his entourage. Which was probably a not-so-subtle dig -- even Klingons were more civilized than Will and I were being.

And of course, Deanna looked just as drop-dead gorgeous as Beverly, in a midnight-blue bodice-popping dress. I thought Gilbraith might have his chin stepped on if he weren't careful. The young captain had a starry-eyed look to begin with, but got worse with the appearance of each successive female in formal civilian attire. When Will introduced him to Jean-Luc he managed to recover himself.

"Have you been to the ball before?" he asked me. We'd followed Picard over to watch the famed Lwaxana Troi be introduced to Our Lady of Admiralty, but the anticipated fireworks never happened -- Deanna's mother behaved herself and moved onward, shooting a smug glance at her son-in-law. Will moved away with Jean-Luc, muttering incredulous accusations of bribery and blackmail to get Lwaxana to mind her manners, and Deanna departed in yet another direction to join Beverly and Bell and the Klingons, giving me one quick look and following it with a glance at the admiral. The uncharacteristic ire in her eyes caught my attention. She'd begun to show signs that it was more than baby blues at work -- something was afoot, and she was involved.

I remember Gilbraith's question finally. "I've been to it couple times. It's usually good for an evening's nap."

"I think it's interesting. Where else can you meet Captain Picard and hear him kidding around?"

Where else indeed? I suspected the kidding around to be part of Jean-Luc's ongoing campaign to get his wife back to normal. He may not understand her mood completely, but he'd do what he could to help.

As Gilbraith and I lurked near one of the gleaming gold lantern trees that stood at regular intervals around the room like upside-down octopuses holding glowing pink Christmas ornaments, I noticed a shift in the crowd -- Jean-Luc emerged from a knot of officers at the bar sans Riker. Will now stood with Shelby and four others. Nechayev was nowhere in sight. Lwaxana reigned in a corner, her silent servant at her side, telling a group of mildly-interested admirals some anecdote that necessitated arm-waving and finger-wiggling.

Again, I surveyed the room for signs of anything suspicious. Gilbraith nattered on about the people he'd met. ". . . Thorson, and Bickren, and even Shelby. Do you think she's with anyone in particular?"

"Who?" I asked, not really paying attention. Jean-Luc had joined his wife and was greeting one of Worf's companions in Klingon. Fascinating -- his body language actually changed. I wondered if he was a natural mimic or if he practiced in front of a mirror.

"Shelby."

"I doubt she is. I don't think she's looking, either."

"What if someone finds her first? Who are you looking for?"

I faced him again and shrugged. "Just looking. D'Tokalla isn't here. Too bad, he's usually good for a few laughs."

"So do you know a lot of the brass here?"

That raised my eyebrow. "Just how long have you been a captain?"

"About six months."

"I didn't catch the name of your ship."

He shrugged sheepishly. "The *Richardson.*"

Ah. A courier, small enough to fit in one of *Venture*'s shuttle bays with a few feet to spare. It probably took a dozen people to crew it. I'd seen it arrive the night before, when I couldn't sleep and sat watching the viewport in the living room so as not to wake Beverly. He'd come through the wormhole and docked on one of the upper pylons.

"What were you doing in the Gamma Quadrant?"

I didn't anticipate the shocked stare. "How did you know I was in the Gamma Quadrant?"

"I've been spying on you, of course," I said with a grin, trying to diffuse his sudden defensiveness. "You came through last night around one hundred hours. I saw your ship while I was wormhole-watching."

His shoulders relaxed. "I see. So, how long have you known Captain Picard? Have you worked with him much?"

"Sure. The rumors are all true about him, y'know."

"Which ones?"

A flutter of glittering purple from my right startled both of us. "There you are," Lwaxana cried, her fingers descending on my arm as if she'd captured elusive prey. "Why, Captain, how *good* to see you again! I've heard you're a marvelous dancer, you simply must do me the honor of a waltz."

Lora and I had run into Lwaxana and Mwala on the Promenade earlier in the day, and while Lwaxana had actually charmed a smile out of Lora, I still suspected that she, like Nechayev, had instantly disliked me. "Madame Ambassador -- "

"It's so unusual to find an officer who likes to dance." She spoke in happy exclamation marks and had a way of carrying you along on a wave of cheerful insistence -- before I knew it, we were at the edge of the dance floor, leaving Gilbraith and his stunned look beneath the lantern tree. I glanced around in hopes of an out and noticed amused smiles from many, and downright smirks of devilish glee from several, Riker and Picard in particular. Even my own Verly turned away to hide her laughter. Deanna, however, wasn't laughing -- before her mother pulled me around to waltz and tore my eyes away, I had the distinct impression that she was actually relieved.

"Ambassador -- "

"My, aren't you a tall one," she exclaimed, squeezing my shoulder. "Isn't this a lovely party? I had this dress made especially for the occasion, do you like it?"

"It's -- "

"Beautiful, yes, I know, your thoughts are *so* plain I don't even have to make an effort to read them. I knew you wanted to dance with me from all the way over at the bar. Oh -- don't even think that! Captain! Such a *naughty* boy you are!"

So this was the outrageous Lwaxana Troi in action. I could see how Jean-Luc would be easily dismayed by such tactics.

"Well, what am I supposed to think about when a woman such as yourself drags me off to the dance floor and puts her hand down the back of my uniform?"

Other dancers gave us a wide berth, and some laughed out loud. Lwaxana's nails suddenly dug into my arm. The ferocity of her grip contrasted with her continued lackadaisical tone and posture; the heel of her other hand rested against my palm as the fingers flicked in frivolous gestures and we turned, more marching to the gentle waltz than dancing.

"You *must* know what a tempting package you are, Captain," she cooed, tossing her head and smiling at me as if I were made of chocolate and cherries. But the words inserted forcefully into my thoughts were so far removed from her demeanor and so unexpected, I actually faltered from the step-step-slide my feet had practiced to the point of automation.

&lt; Do not toy with me. I know you are hiding something deep in your mind, and I know how my daughter feels when she is near you or Nechayev. Leave her alone. &gt;

We happened to be passing one of the lantern trees at a corner of the dance floor, which also happened to be near a wall. A sidestep, and she was moving off the floor with me, down the service corridor through which servers arrived and departed with food and empty dishes. Two quick turns while she was still startled, a grab of her arm, and I had her against the wall, my hip pressing against hers.

"Stay out of my head," I grated. "You don't want the liability. Trust me."

"Let me -- "

"Shut up! I'm not going to play this game, Ambassador. Whatever's in my head needs to stay there."

"Leave my family alone," she said, keeping her voice low as I had been. She wasn't afraid of me. She was, in fact, furious -- I wondered how much she knew and who had told her.

"They have nothing to fear from me, and neither do you. I don't want to be your enemy. Deanna is a friend, I care about her, and I'd go out of my way to help her -- the same goes for Jean-Luc."

"Let go." She wrenched free. I stepped back, glancing at the closed doors at the far end of the corridor. She rearranged the folds of her dress and brushed her arms as if I'd left dirt behind. "What are you?"

I knew she was reading me. My speech had been made for that reason, so she'd see I was no threat to anyone. "I'm a Starfleet officer. I took an oath, I keep it."

"Then why does Deanna feel fear when she is with you?" She tucked her hands in her sleeves and held her head high, an empress demanding explanations of a subject.

"I can't discuss that with you. She can't, either. It's classified. Let's just say we've been through some serious situations lately, and I probably remind her of that."

Misdirecting telepaths isn't easy, but it could be done. She seemed to suspect I wasn't telling everything, but she probably wanted to believe my explanation. "What about the admiral?"

"Nechayev intimidates everyone. Back to the dance floor, my dear, before we're missed." I bowed and gestured. Disdaining the offer of my hand, she strode from the corridor and left me there, heading for her manservant. At the flick of her fingers, Homn picked up the little gong he'd been whacking in between sips of a largish tankard of something and followed her from the ballroom.

I headed for the bar. Beverly wasn't around, nor was anyone else I knew. As I skirted the perimeter of the dance floor someone pinched my arm -- whirling, I found myself confronting Deanna.

"Would you care to dance?" she said, gesturing at the floor.

"The last Betazoid I danced with threatened me," I said under my breath. "No, thanks."

Deanna crossed her arms. Never mind that it only shoved her barely-contained breasts against her dress until I feared they'd spring out and give me a concussion.

"Tom," she growled, drawing my eyes back up to hers. "Stop staring at me like that."

"You started it."

She tossed her head in irritation. "What did Mother want with you?"

"She wanted to know what I was hiding, and why you were afraid when I was around. I told her it was classified. Indirectly pointed a finger at lingering Briar Patch fallout trauma. We shouldn't be discussing this here."

"This is the safest place to do it," she murmured, smiling sweetly. "Cheer up, Thomas, people are watching even if they aren't listening. My husband already left to rendezvous with the babysitter because our child decided to scream incessantly. I'm about to follow him. Don't trust Gilbraith and don't get drunk. And don't trust Nechayev," she added, almost mouthing the words silently as she marched away. When she shot an angry glare at me over her shoulder I shook myself from my shock-induced moment of slack-jawed coma and pivoted on a heel, and almost stepped on a fleet admiral.

"Care to dance?" I tossed off flippantly, before I could react any other way -- like, dropping flat on my back in a dead faint. She couldn't have been standing there the whole time or Deanna would have done anything but warn me.

"Certainly, Captain." She smiled and walked with me to the edge of the dance floor, assumed the proper stance, and joined me and about a dozen other people for the bajillionth waltz of the evening.

If the first portion of the evening was as typically boring as all Admiralty Balls, the second half was making up for that in leaps and bounds.

I was beginning to see how she'd gotten the nickname Iron Maiden -- whoever had applied the name had danced with her at some official function. Imagining her joints clanking as we waltzed kept a silly grin on my face, which annoyed her; I knew that from the determined pleasant smile she wore.

By the end of the song she wore a strange distant expression. "Something wrong, sir?" I let go of her and set myself free from onerous deadfooted waltzing.

"Not at all." She returned from inner musings with a renewed smile. "You're quite a good dancer, Captain. I'm surprised you offered. I'm not exactly the most sought-after partner at these functions."

"Can't imagine why. Maybe those of lesser rank find the thought of accidentally tromping on the fleet admiral's toes a bit daunting."

Light-hearted small talk seemed to represent an olive branch to her. She glanced around then up into my eyes, losing the superficiality. "Perhaps. Though I wonder if it isn't obvious that I don't care for dancing."

"It's obvious. If you liked it, you'd loosen up and move your feet more."

A curious flicker in her blue eyes reminded me of Deanna's warning. "Do you enjoy dancing, Captain Glendenning?"

"When the music's right and you're with the right partner, dancing can be a lot of fun. My mother was a professional dancer, and my sister and her daughter are also. I'm told my father was a decent hoofer. Guess I come by it honestly." At the mention of my father, I thought her lips tightened. Just a bit, barely noticeable, but it was a reaction nevertheless. She was the right age -- maybe she'd met him prior to his untimely demise, maybe even been a classmate. "Did you know my father, Admiral?"

"No. I didn't. Excuse me -- I must mingle, you know how it is," she rambled, smiling again, and off she went to greet someone with far too much cheer.

I went for a drink. This was too much to deal with while completely sober -- she had indeed known my father, else why panic and flit off at the mere mention of him?

I found Beverly after some mingling of my own. She and Bell were still together, and Will had joined them. The three of them had their backs to one of the ever-useful lantern trees, the glowing pinkish globes hovering over their heads providing more and more light as the main lights dimmed gradually over the course of the evening.

"There you are," Beverly exclaimed. "Did you like Lwaxana?"

Oh, the teasing I could have done under normal circumstances! "She didn't like me."

"The admiral seems to," Bell commented, peering slyly at me through her lashes.

"Right. Didn't you hear her clanking while we were dancing? Verly, this is a bust -- let's go rescue Greenman from Lora and call it a night, hm?"

~^~^~^~^~

Deanna made slow progress toward her quarters. Her feet hurt and her eyes wanted to drift shut, but she kept going. She flinched when her mother appeared suddenly in front of her. "Mother!"

Lwaxana took her arm and turned to walk alongside, escorting her around the corner and smiling vapidly. Her thoughts carried with them her overwhelming concern that didn't show. &lt; I'm sorry, Little One. I was only returning to see that you were all right. I wish you would tell me what's going on. &gt;

&lt; I can't, but I wish that I could. And no, it has nothing to do with Jean-Luc. &gt;

&lt; But it has something to do with that Glendenning fellow -- dear, you must know he's hiding something! &gt;

She'd been prying. Rather than address it, Deanna mastered her own reaction and walked on.

They met Natalia and Lora at the next junction, on their way to another part of the habitat ring. "He suggested that I take her to my quarters for the duration," Natalia explained. "So the baby can sleep."

"Yves could sleep through a Risan ale festival," Lwaxana exclaimed. "Most babies could."

Natalia shrugged. "It's the captain's quarters. Guess he wanted quality time with his son. At least Yves quieted right down the minute he picked him up -- Lora and I walked him all over and sang and made goofy faces till our cheeks hurt, and nothing worked, but one smile from his dad and everything was fine again."

"He missed his papa," Lora chimed in. She shrunk from their direct attention, but rebounded quickly. "Uncle Luc gave me a hug, too."

Deanna's amusement at the term of endearment was surpassed only by her mother's -- Lwaxana actually chuckled at it and bent to hug the girl herself. "Well, my dear, that must be because you're completely huggable. How would you and Natalia like to come back to my suite and play a game with me?"

&lt; Mother, don't you dare start questioning her about her father! &gt;

&lt; I wouldn't think of it, Little One. I just think she needs a positive influence in her life, however briefly. &gt; Lwaxana touched Lora's cheek and took the hand the girl offered. "Come along, dears," she exclaimed, brushing Natalia's arm with her other hand as she led Lora away. Natalia, no stranger to Lwaxana and her eccentricities, winked at Deanna and followed along.

Deanna stood as she was until their happy voices dwindled into the distance and were finally silenced by a closing door. Plexing, she closed her eyes and attempted a moment of meditation, groping for composure in spite of her frustration. The evening hadn't gone well. The near-disasters and tensions around her had worn on her. She didn't usually have to mask her own emotions so completely.

"Hey," came a soft familiar call. She smiled as she turned to Beverly and Tom.

"I thought you'd stay and dance the night away."

"We're as tired as you look," Beverly said. "Are you standing out here for some peace and quiet? Lora can get a bit shrill, I know."

"Oh -- it's not that, I just wanted a moment alone. Lora and Natalia are with my mother, by the way. Her quarters are down that way, section three cabin twelve I think. I meant to ask -- how are the three of you getting along?"

"As well as can be expected." Tom refrained from glancing at Beverly, but his emotional state spoke more eloquently than his words or his facial expression. Deanna knew from numerous private conversations with Beverly over the past few days that she still struggled over Tom's Section involvement and Lora's mysterious origins. The three had been talking to Ezri for official counseling, but Beverly still came to Deanna for emotional support. Unfortunately, that too had become an energy drain, and Deanna found it increasingly difficult to remain patient.

"Will you be at the party tomorrow in the holosuite? Will probably set up a beach of some sort -- he prefers getting us as far out of uniform as possible."

Beverly and Tom exchanged a questioning glance, then laughed a little at themselves for it. "Sure, we'll be there. It'll be fun," Beverly said. "As long as Will doesn't cook for us."

"Who knows, maybe we can manage to push Worf in the water." Deanna took a step. "Good night -- see you tomorrow."

She walked slower than they did, and reached her door after they'd disappeared around the curve of the corridor. Sighing, she made another attempt at relaxation.

"Good evening."

She jerked to attention. Gilbraith, still in dress uniform, passed her, slowing as he drew even with her. She stared at his friendly dark eyes and handsome face.

"Is it?"

His smile waned. "It was for me. I found the ball quite entertaining. Didn't you?"

She hadn't recognized his voice when Will introduced him and still didn't, but she was certain he was the same man from her nocturnal encounter nearly three weeks before. Briefly she flirted with the idea of confrontation. Very briefly.

"In a way, it was. Excuse me, Captain."

She walked further along the corridor, not liking the thought of his knowing where she and her family were staying -- folly, as he could've found out easily enough, probably, but she couldn't help herself. She risked a glance down the long curve of corridor. The junction was still in sight, and Gilbraith stood there watching her. Flashing him a smile, she strode away from him, until a second look back told her he was gone and it was safe to return to her quarters. She took off her heels and hurried on silent, bare feet to the door and inside to privacy.

Relatively speaking. Jean-Luc had Yves in his carrier on the floor and sat cross-legged playing his Ressikan flute. He glanced up but continued the soft lullaby. Deanna tossed aside her shoes, then sauntered across to stand over him, peering at the baby she knew was sound asleep. Bending at the waist slowly, mindful of creaking seams, she spoke in Jean-Luc's ear.

"Help me out of this dress?"

Immediately his playing ceased. "Of course. Why do you think I wanted you to wear it?"

"The same reason I agreed to wear it?"

At least it wasn't too difficult to find something to distract her, however temporarily, from her suspicions and fears. But later, with Jean-Luc's steady breathing the only sound, she couldn't sleep until she brought the lights up to quarter intensity. It dispelled the darkness just enough to reassure her nothing lurked in the room unseen. She watched her husband's face as he slept, succumbing at last to the urge to touch him. He didn't wake when she took his hand. Moments later, he sighed and rolled over in his sleep, pulling his hand free of hers and throwing his arm over her.

She thought about people she'd counseled in years past. Couples who had squabbled over trivial things, like how much one of them tossed and turned at night, and the suddenly-single people who missed their partner's tossing and turning. She decided that she didn't mind the covers being stolen, or waking up to find an arm or leg dangling because he'd crowded her almost off the bed, but his hot breath in her ear was another matter.

A shove and he was on his back, still asleep and oblivious. She straightened the covers and curled up on her left side, hoping to fall asleep before the next bout of thrashing.

Her next thought was hardly a thought -- the hand gripping her shoulder too tightly sent her into a panic. She leaped, not quite aware yet of where she was and what was happening, and felt a stabbing pain on the back of her head before slamming to the floor, the covers sliding down on top of her along with her pillow.

"Dee! Are you all right?" In the dim light Jean-Luc became a shadow, bending over her. He cradled her head in his hand and helped her sit up. "You were having a bad dream."

Panting, she realized Yves was wailing in terror. "The baby," she gasped. "What's happened?"

"You screamed. It frightened all of us, I think. I don't think you hit that hard -- the skin's not broken. You collided with the night table on the way down. Good thing it doesn't have a sharp edge. Stay here and catch your breath, I'll be right back with the baby."

She pushed herself up and leaned against the bed. By the time he came back with the baby she had recovered well enough to return the covers and pillow to where they belonged. "Just bring him to bed with us," she said wearily. "I think we'll all sleep better that way."

With the room temperature set a few degrees warmer they slept on the covers instead of under them, and with the baby between them neither of them would be nearly so active while asleep. And having Yves so near helped her dispel the fading memory of her nightmare of waking to find him missing.

~^~^~^~^~

I knew from having a mother who hosted a long series of foster kids that we were in the honeymoon period with Lora. Lucky for us she was old enough to dress herself and handle her own bathroom trips -- I don't think I could've handled the mess of a toddler and Beverly's rampant jitters at the same time. The girl cheerfully cooperated with my instructions and less cheerfully with Beverly's; it frustrated my Verly that all her maternal ways failed to get through to this giggling little creature with my eyes.

I still knew she wasn't naturally conceived, if she honestly was my daughter. All the tests Bashir and Beverly ran came up inconclusive -- they couldn't tell me with absolute certainty if I was her father. Since the technology exists to combine genetic material from a number of different cells with any viable egg and create a normal fetus, Lora could as easily be the product of a tissue sample somehow purloined from one of my sisters, or even one of my nieces or nephews. But Deanna was right about that parental instinct kicking in. It wasn't just responsibility any more. I liked the kid. So there, I admitted it.

The morning of my fourth day of playing daddy, Deanna's birthday, the honeymoon ended as I pulled a shirt over my head and stuck my right arm through the sleeve.

"Lora, hurry up!" came a faint exclamation from the living area. "I've called you three times."

Silence. I put the left arm through, tugged the shirt down, and went barefooted to investigate. As I left the bedroom Beverly was putting a pitcher on the set table. She glanced at me and instantly I was sent back in time -- her expression reminded me of my own mother, setting a table for breakfast while her sluggard children took their own sweet time in bathrooms upstairs. Boy that I was, she could hardly get me to do more than drag a comb through my hair once a week, but my older sisters could tie up a bathroom for hours while they performed arcane rites of femininity that left them looking pretty much like they had before they went in. Or at least I thought so.

Beverly shoved her hair behind her ear and planted her hands on her hips. The first sign of a mad mother. "Lora!"

The second bedroom door opened, and here she came, the chip off the old block -- all that lovely wheat-colored hair stood out like bristles, a smudge of whatever sweet thing Lwaxana had given her the night before still graced her cheek, and as she meandered up to the table in her rumpled nightshirt, one of my old shirts actually, she scratched in a very un-feminine manner.

"Lora," Beverly began, trying very, very hard to be patient with this, "we don't scratch like that in public."

Lora turned her big blues on me. "But Dad did."

Beverly turned her big blues on me also, but with a lot less affection. "Tom!"

I sat down and quietly wished the wormhole would spit out a few unidentified alien battle ships -- those I could handle. "Lora, let me put this to you as succinctly as I can -- I'm not a good example for you to follow. Listen to Beverly."

"But you're my dad."

"But you don't have to imitate everything I do because of that. Beverly -- "

"What is Beverly?" Lora blurted. "Is she your wife?"

"Um. Well, no."

"What about my mother? If you're my dad, why weren't you with us?"

Beverly quietly left the room. It's unreasonable to feel angry, I told myself, but it did no good -- it felt like a betrayal after that little talk in sickbay last week, when she'd insisted we would see this through together. Here I was with no parental experience feeling my way along a treacherous path, and there she went, abandoning me when I needed her most.

I took Lora's hand. "Your mother never told me about you, for one thing. I don't even know where you were living. You haven't told me."

"I don't remember." She looked at the things on the table as if searching for a distraction. "Why do you live with Beverly if she's not your wife?"

"Where'd you get this idea that a man and a woman living together should be married?"

"Uncle Luc married Aunt D," she said breathlessly. "He said he was her husband."

"Uncle. . . ooooh-kay, well, your uncle is married, that's true. Some people prefer to do things the traditional way. But you don't have to be married to live with someone, or to have kids with someone."

"But if you aren't married she can't be my mother, so I don't have to do what she says."

If there's one constant in my life, it's timing. Things happen to me constantly at just the wrong moment, like Beverly returning as she put her hair back in a clip, just in time to hear Lora's assessment of How It Ought To Be.

Before I knew it, my hand came up, out went the finger, and I delivered my first parental ultimatum. "Wrong. You have to do everything she says."

"Why?"

A more trained ear would've heard the belligerence and done something differently, no doubt. I saw Beverly start forward out of the corner of my eye, but the words were already coming out. "Because even if she isn't your mother, I'm your father and I say you have to."

"She doesn't think you're my dad," Lora exclaimed. "I heard her -- she said those tests weren't conclusive. She doesn't even like me! She's not my mom, and I don't have to do anything she says!"

"Yes, you do!"

"Don't!" she shrieked, sliding out of the chair and racing for her room. The shirt flapped up just before the door slid shut behind her.

"Great. And she moons me to add insult to injury," I grumbled. "Now what?"

"You go in and talk to her, after both of you have had a chance to breathe and shake it off. Give it a few minutes." Beverly took her seat at the table and poured herself some juice. Her eyes landed on me as she raised the glass. "Hey, you didn't do so bad for your first power struggle."

"Considering I had no help, I guess so. Thanks a lot."

The glass went down with a thunk. "She doesn't respect me, Tom. You heard her. Anything I did would have made things worse."

"Do you even care that she appears to hate you? Or was she right in her assumption that you don't even like her?"

Beverly rested her forehead on the ball of her hand briefly. She rose, took a swig of juice, put down the glass, and headed for the door.

"Thanks, see you," I called after her.

"You're taking it out on me, Tom. I'm not sticking around to play scapegoat."

"No, you'll go run off to a counselor, Ezri or Deanna, or maybe Jean-Luc -- you'll talk to anyone and everyone but me about your feelings. Fine, you go do that. Whatever makes you happy, sweet pea."

She stopped in her tracks. From her stiff back and her fists, I'd hit a nerve. "I hate when you get sarcastic."

"I hate being on a one-way track in another one-way relationship."

"What?" She whirled around, tears already spilling. "You think I haven't tried? What else can I do?"

"Oh, for -- what good are counselors? What good has it done to waste our breath talking about a future when you keep walking out on the present?"

Blood rushed into her face. "I keep walking out? You can disappear without ever leaving the room! How many times have you drifted off into your own thoughts and when I ask all you say is they aren't even worth a penny? How many other secrets have you kept from me? How do I know Lora isn't the first of many stepchildren?"

"She's not! I don't even know if *she's* really mine!"

Unfortunately, walls and doors aren't soundproof within quarters on Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately, our voices had risen to hostile wall-shaking volumes. As Beverly and I stared at each other in horror at our stupidity, Lora charged out of her room. She'd put on pants and a shirt at least, though her hair still looked like she'd hung her head out a viewport at warp eight. She blurted out something incoherent between sobs and dashed for the door. Beverly caught her but couldn't hold her; she was out and gone in a thrashing of limbs.

"Shit!" I shouted, a split-second before Beverly shouted the same -- I got as far as the door and our eyes met, and then we were both laughing.

"I don't believe this," she gasped as we went after the wayward child. She wiped her cheeks on her sleeves. "We actually talked about this in counseling and here we are fighting like this."

"The problem with Ezri is neither of us is comfortable expressing real emotion in front of her," I said. "Let's just get Lora back before someone mistakes her for a mop. I hope we can repair the damage somehow."

We got halfway around the habitat ring and were about to give up and call ops for help from security when Deanna came up behind us, calling our names. "You're looking for Lora," she said as we backtracked to meet her. "She ran into my mother's quarters, and Mother brought her to us."

"You're probably wondering what happened," Beverly said.

"You were arguing and something you said upset her." Deanna eyed me then turned to lead the way. "You're losing your touch, Tom, you seem to have that affect on people lately. My mother has decided I have poor taste in friends."

"Maybe she's right," I said, keeping up easily.

"Maybe she's being her usual hysterical self. Fortunately, she's inexplicably decided to take every suggestion Jean makes and has left Lora in his care while she returns to her morning rituals. Otherwise you might have been treated to quite a sight. Lora burst in while Mother was getting in the shower, and when there's a crisis Mother doesn't bother with trivial things such as clothing or washing off the beauty mask she wears every night."

By the time we reached the door, Beverly had contained her laughter. "So she came down here in nothing but a face mask and just walked in with Lora?"

Deanna smirked. "She doesn't just mask her face, and she didn't walk. Lora was scared to death of her -- she didn't recognize Mother under all the mud and shot out of the room again, and I guess our quarters was the only other place she knew to go. Mother came running after her."

We went in with Beverly nearly choking on her mirth. I wished she'd quit laughing already. What if Lora were so traumatized by the whole series of events she never spoke to me again?

The Picards' quarters were messier than my old dorm room had been at the Academy. An open case on the floor had apparently regurgitated all kinds of baby paraphernalia. Jean-Luc's dress uniform jacket slumped over the back of a chair; his boots leaned on each other nearby on the floor, keeping company with the shoes Deanna had worn to the ball. The sofa was being used to display recent acquisitions, including a variety of baby toys I'd heard Dee mention her mother had brought.

Jean-Luc sat in the middle of the floor cross-legged. In front of him sat Lora, and in her lap was Yves. She swayed gently and hummed to the baby. Jean-Luc had a hairbrush and was carefully untangling her hair.

"A family is what you decide it is," he said, then glanced at us. "What do you want your family to be?"

"Momma," Lora said at once.

"But you can't have her. You have to make another choice. If you don't stay with your father, you'll go to an orphanage, or into foster care. You may be adopted -- or maybe not."

"I could stay with you and Aunt D."

"Well, you could," Deanna said, putting her hands behind her back and strolling around to stand in front of Lora. Her full skirt whispered around her ankles. "But I don't think you would want to. We argue sometimes too, and you'd probably have to learn to change diapers. And you'd have to put up with Lieutenant Greenman on an ongoing basis -- she's at the top of our babysitter list."

"Don't need a babysitter," Lora huffed.

"If you stayed with us you'd have one until we thought you were old enough to not need one," Jean-Luc said. He set aside the hairbrush. "And once that happened you would turn into a babysitter yourself, because by then we'll have had more children. Six or seven, at least. That's a lot of diapers and runny noses and crying to put up with."

"Oh, I'd say there'll be at least ten children," Deanna exclaimed, crossing her arms. "Maybe even twelve. And that means sharing a room -- six children per room, since we have two extra bedrooms."

"We'd run out of beds." Jean-Luc reached around to take Yves and got up slowly. "You'd have to sleep on the floor."

Lora noticed me and Beverly at last. She leaped up and ran to me. "Who would you get to babysit? Are you having more babies?"

"Nope, you get your own room. And I don't know who I'd get to babysit, but it'll probably be someone you get along with. I know what you mean about Greenman, she's not my idea of a babysitter either."

"Can I have a piggyback ride?"

"Only if you promise to eat all your breakfast."

"Yeah," she yelled, scrambling up on the nearest chair so she could hop on my back.

I heard Deanna's giggle as the door shut behind us. Beverly sighed pensively and said nothing on the long walk back to our quarters, nor did she say much over breakfast while Lora questioned me about living arrangements. Her silence worried me. With Lora around, however, there would be no opportunity to discuss it. I hoped it was something that would keep until bed time.

~^~^~^~^~

"I can't do it," Beverly whispered.

Deanna, caught in the act of raising another bite of birthday cake to her mouth, turned to her friend. The holosuite had been configured to a coastal setting; Ranalfian palms swayed overhead in the breeze, foamy green-blue waves combed the pale pinkish sands, and one of Ranalf's four moons showed pale in the deep blue sky, pursuing the yellow sun. Tom and Will were teaching Lora how to throw a frisbee. Bell and Jean-Luc were watching, holding tall drinks and wearing broad-brimmed hats. Data, like everyone else, wore shorts and a loose shirt, and hummed loudly as he made another drink for Worf, who scowled at the procedure -- or at his attire. Hard to say. He'd always disliked being out of uniform, whether that was 'fleet uniform or traditional Klingon paraphernalia, and Will had imposed a dress code for the party. Deanna knew everyone had a hard time not showing amusement at the sight of a Klingon in shorts.

She sat in the shade, Yves in his carrier on her left and Beverly in another lounge chair on her right. Out in the sun, Lora leaped up and finally caught one of Will's high-arcing throws, laughing as she landed and almost fell, the frisbee in her hands. The girl seemed to be blossoming even as Beverly drew in on herself.

"Why?" Deanna asked. Tucking the bit of cake in her mouth, she glanced at the carrier. Yves bobbed his hand as if greeting the onshore breeze but made no complaint.

"Must I repeat myself? Because of what he is, Dee. I can't stop thinking about it. And the girl doesn't like me."

"She hardly knows whether or not to like Tom. It's only been four days. How can you make a decision like that in four days?"

"I know you think this is just another case of me changing my mind again, but I'm serious -- I can't keep wavering this way, I'm miserable because of it. And the little confrontation this morning reminded me of all the troubles of step-parenting. I don't know if I want my life to be taken over by a child again."

Deanna sighed and put her empty plate on the sand, sitting back again in the lounge and putting up her feet. "Happy birthday, Dee, now listen to my problems."

Beverly's startled glare wasn't unexpected. "I'm sorry I'm such a burden to you."

"I suppose you think I enjoy listening to my friends in pain? You know I'm worried about you, Bev, but you're not doing anyone any favors at the moment. I've listened to you for four days, and I've also listened to Tom. I'm not a counselor any more and I'm tired. I have my own problems to deal with. If you want a counselor to sit around listening to you hedge around your feelings, go talk to Ezri."

Deanna sensed her reaction just as she'd sensed the waves of misery her friend had been feeling on and off all afternoon. Beverly got up, stared at her as shock gave way to concern and sympathy, and left her there.

Deanna closed her eyes. As she knew he would, Jean-Luc arrived on the scene moments later. She heard the creak of the chair Beverly had vacated as he sat down.

Deanna opened one eye, rolling her head slightly his direction."I wish they would just get it all out in the open at once and have done with it. Beverly's driving me mad."

"Not everyone can face up to such things bravely, cygne. We can't all have the strength to hold to our convictions and promises." He watched the frisbee game, giving her an excellent view of his profile. "Some of us can experience rampant insecurity in the face of threats against our closest relationships."

"Some of us are damned tired of watching others be so persistently dense. How many times can she do this to herself?"

Jean-Luc frowned at her.

"No, I won't tell you how many times she's done it. But I care about her, and she keeps wounding herself over and over -- she wants to avoid pain, yet she turns in on herself and ends up hurting all the more. The girl could provide a common goal for them both but I think she believes Lora might hurt someone again. Beverly just won't let herself care about her."

"Perhaps it's Tom who's making a mistake. I know he wants to believe Lora's fine, but the girl did try to kill him."

"If you believe she's capable of it why let her hold our son?"

He shook his head. "I don't think she's capable. I was only playing devil's advocate. But there is a chance she might act out again, especially if it was some sort of brainwashing."

"That's not what it is."

"But there are no implants. She's been under observation since she came here, with the exception of those breakouts. It must be intensive mental conditioning."

"She's a child," Deanna said, watching Lora dashing down the sand and throwing herself after the frisbee before Tom could get it. "Her education has been neglected and she suffers partial amnesia, probably post-traumatic. Her mother was in the Maquis -- Tom told us that much. From what little Lora can tell us, Bejal wanted to find Tom but was captured and killed. I don't think she could have been 'programmed,' as Beverly calls it, to do much more than she's already done. They can't have had her for very long."

"Tom says he never did anything with Bejal. That's why he thinks Lora might not even be his. He suspects intensive genetic manipulations."

"I thought Bashir was running more tests."

"He did. Beverly helped. They didn't find anything conclusive, but without bringing his sisters in on it, which Tom refuses to do, they won't be able to rule them out. All the evidence still points at Tom, which is of course making Beverly wonder if she can believe what he says." Jean-Luc took off the straw hat and scratched his head. "I can tell you've been deliberately distancing yourself, if you don't know all this already."

The frisbee-tossing had devolved into a game of keep away. Will sent the pink disk toward Tom, Lora dashing after it and shouting for help. Data ran out, snatched it with a flick of a hand, and presented it to her with a flourish.

"Counselor, counsel thyself."

Deanna sat up. "I know I'm not exactly up to par -- "

"Dee, up to par would have you out there swiping the frisbee and finding out whether Lora's ticklish. If I were moping this way, you'd kick me from here to the other end of the station and back. If you ask me, which you haven't but I'll say it anyway, you're the one who's projecting. It's completely unlike you to be so short with Beverly, no matter how tired you are. You're pushing people away."

Anger swelled in her throat. In a way, that was good -- she couldn't speak.

"I say we give her the presents," Bell called out. And since it brought everyone over to where Deanna sat, she composed herself and smiled, doing her best to set aside her ire.

Everyone knew something was amiss. The boisterousness and laughter died away as they left what they were doing, as if she were very fragile. None of them knew what she'd lost, but over the past weeks since Ba'ku they'd asked after her welfare often. They retrieved gifts from the pile near the bar. While they gathered around, Deanna watched their faces and paid close attention -- even Data couldn't meet her gaze for long. From all but him, she sensed the concern, the hope, and some measure of sympathy. Even Beverly.

"Didn't you get her a present, Jean-Luc?" Will asked.

"My gift is simple -- if anyone tries to sing, I'll throw them out."

"Good gift," Beverly said, glancing at Worf. "Here, open mine first." She leaned over the back of Deanna's lounge chair and dropped a small parcel in her lap.

Deanna fumbled with the paper. "Weren't we supposed to do presents before the cake?"

"We thought we'd get the serious part out of the way. Give up the chocolate first, and that way you'll be able to concentrate on the presents." Will chuckled and glanced pointedly at the saucer in the sand next to her.

Bell tsked. "I can't understand why she tolerates you and your teasing, cher."

"She'd be worried if he didn't tease," Jean-Luc said.

Deanna finished tearing off the paper and pulled open the hinged box. A glittering gold pin lay inside, fashioned to look like a spray of six flowers. Three of the flowers held gem stones in their centers, one purple and two red.

"It's a very old pin. It was among Nana's things, on Caldos -- I didn't realize what it was until I did some research and found an antique dealer on Earth who recognized it. You're supposed to put the birthstones of your children in it."

"Birthstones?"

"It's an old Terran custom," Jean-Luc said. "Each of the twelve months is represented by a different gem stone. The date of birth determines which gem is your birthstone."

"I put yours and Jean-Luc's in, too," Beverly said, pointing at the first two stones. "The third one is the same as the second because the stone for July is the ruby, and you managed to have Yves in the same month as your birthday."

"Do the stones have any meaning?" Deanna turned it over in her fingers. Something sharp pricked her finger. She stared at the three empty places. "What's the purple one?"

"Amethyst," Jean-Luc said.

"Because he's a Pisces," Beverly added. "Believe it or not. There's an old system called the Zodiac -- something to do with constellations and the month you're born in."

"I believe you're referring to astrology." Jean-Luc sniffed. "Pisces, indeed."

"So what am I, if he's Pisces?"

"That took a little more research, but I believe you're a Leo. The lion. Because it's so late in the month -- Yves is earlier and under a different sign."

"It's a beautiful pin, but this is an heirloom -- I couldn't -- "

"You can, you will. Heaven knows I'm not going to fill all those spaces with stones." Deanna looked up, trying to smile, but wasn't successful in her pretense -- Beverly's reserved smile vanished at once. "Dee, what's wrong?"

"So what sign was Yves born under?" She turned her attention to the pin again, pretending fascination.

"Cancer, of all things. Why that would be. . . . Deanna," Beverly breathed, dropping to her knees next to the chair. She glanced at Bell as Yves started to cry. Bell took the baby out of the carrier but Deanna shrugged off Beverly's hands, gave the pin to Jean-Luc, and reached for her son.

"It's all right," Bell said, "I'll take care -- "

"Give him to me! Please," she added, trying in vain to regain composure. Bell passed the baby over slowly. Once she had Yves in her arms, Deanna focused on soothing him. She realized as the baby quieted that everyone else still sat around her, silent as stones. Jean-Luc seemed to be counting grains of sand between his feet. He rubbed his chest absently; the gesture reminded her of his artificial heart, and how he'd lost it. Which reminded her of other near-death experiences he'd had, many of which she'd seen first-hand. How little he complained about her mood all week -- how patient he'd been. How many times he could have pointed out that her loss really wasn't such a loss, because there were other ways to fill those three empty spots on the pin.

"I'm sorry," she said, clearing her throat. She dabbed at her eyes with a corner of Yves' blanket. "I've been in a terrible mood for too long, and you've all been very patient with me -- you don't deserve to be snapped at the way I've been doing. It's just been difficult for me to accept that I may have lost the ability to conceive naturally, because of the radiation I was exposed to in the Briar Patch. I feel a little silly, actually, because it's not as though I was assimilated, or -- "

"It's a loss just the same," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "Minimizing its impact won't help."

"I suppose not. Of course, neither will repeating my old advice to me."

"Minimizing is a human thing to do," Will said, keeping his tone light but in a way that told her he took the whole matter seriously, indeed. Perhaps it was the concern in his eyes. "A way of coping, I've been told. Maybe she needs to do it."

"Human psychology is complicated and best left to professional counselors," Data said. He shoved the ragged-edged straw hat up from his face. "Perhaps what she really needs is a show of support from her friends. I am given to understand a hug is the proper way to show support?"

"Perhaps." Worf's single, bass note startled Lora, who sidled away from him and bumped into Bell. Worf ignored her and gazed intently at each of the adults in turn. "But we cannot all hug her at once. We should nominate a representative."

Most of them looked at Jean-Luc. To Deanna's surprise, he smiled benignly. "I don't think I'd be a very good representative. I've been hugging her all week, and she's still moping."

"Well, it should be someone male and good-looking -- what?" Will cried at Bell's scathing glare. "Tom! Data! Worf, even!"

"I don't see why it couldn't be someone female -- it's only a friendly hug," Beverly said. "But if male's the ticket, I'll volunteer Tom. He'd probably enjoy it."

"He will *not* enjoy it," Jean-Luc exclaimed. He took Yves from Deanna's arms.

"*Even* Worf?" Worf scowled at Will, taking a few menacing steps his direction.

"I didn't mean it that way!"

"We could ask that nice Dr. Bashir to do it," Bell put in helpfully.

"That would not be the same. The objective was to have a friend do it -- Dr. Bashir is, so far as I know, not Deanna's friend, but an acquaintance," Data said.

"What about Counselor Dax?" Tom suggested. "The symbiont's been passed to male and female hosts -- a compromise to end the male/female debate."

Deanna finally snapped her mouth shut and found her voice. "Lora, come here and give me a hug."

The girl edged past Worf and climbed into Deanna's lap. She hugged as hard as she could, slid off and scurried back to Tom.

"Now that that's settled, where's the next present?" Jean-Luc asked.

While Bell handed a box wrapped in silver foil to Will to pass along, Data offered to get Worf another drink. Deanna fastened the pin on the front of her blouse before taking the present.

She got it open in record time. Puzzled, she held up the dress. It was a very nice one, burgundy with black trim and apparently form-fitting. But why a gown?

Bell laughed. "Such confusion! It's a bridesmaid's dress, of course."

A moment of stunned silence. Then Deanna erupted from the chair, dropped the dress across it, and lunged at the laughing couple, joining them in merriment and hugs. The others seconded the sentiment in more sedate ways, shaking hands -- Jean-Luc dared to dodge in to kiss the future bride early, getting away with it mostly because he still held the baby.

The party became a party at last. Deanna asked incessant questions about the wedding, laughing over memories of weddings performed aboard the **Enterprise** and even mentioned her own thwarted ceremony of long ago, when her mother had brought along her pet vine and Data circled like an eager vulture, observing the interactions between the guests. The group pestered the couple for a wedding date and and Will finally suggested having it when they returned to the starbase in a few days.

As the afternoon drew long and became evening and people pled hunger and debated over dinner plans, Deanna noticed a shift in mood. Tom had participated at first in the chatter, quoting anecdotes about his sisters' wedding ceremonies, but became withdrawn gradually. A similar shift had taken place in Beverly, who sat at the opposite end of the cluster of chairs in which the group sat. She was the first to claim imminent starvation and excuse herself; Tom went with her, Lora in tow.

Jean-Luc looked a question at Deanna. He didn't even have to think it. She rose and picked up the baby's carrier and the diaper bag. "As wonderful as dinner sounds, I'm exhausted. If we're all going to be on the station another day, could we do it tomorrow night?"

"If we are to perform the Kal'hyah, we will not be able to dine together tomorrow night," Worf exclaimed.

Will's classic stunned expression made Deanna giggle, which in turn made Will frown. Obviously he hadn't thought about the ramifications of having a Klingon best man. Four nights of fasting didn't sound like much of a celebration, especially in combination with the various rituals involving pain, blood and other Klingon fun.

"Worf, as honored as we would all be to perform that ritual with you, you should perhaps honor the groom's tradition instead," Jean-Luc put in. "A bachelor party."

"I have been to such parties before," Worf said. "They are hardly worth calling parties. Tame. Not befitting a warrior."

"Worf," Deanna chided gently.

His head went up, his nostrils flared -- the tone probably reminded him of arguments long past -- but he nodded curtly. "But if it is your preference, we shall have a bachelor party," he announced, as if declaring war.

"I'll have my mother suggest entertainment. She's good at finding such things."

"What?" Will blurted. "Dee, I really don't -- "

"All right, if you really want to have the party at Quark's and lose the rest of your wages on overpriced drinks, go ahead." Deanna started after her husband, already in transit toward the grove of palms marking the exit. "But give me a call if you change your mind," she tossed over her shoulder.

Jean-Luc slowed to let her catch up. They left Quark's, then strolled down the Promenade. "Interesting how letting it go that way made your mood pick right up."

"It wasn't just that. It was the way my friends ganged up on me to cheer me up. And, it was realizing how self-centered I was being, and how wonderful you've been."

"If you think not knowing what to say or do to help is wonderful, we have a long, happy marriage ahead of us."

She smiled and took his arm. "I can predict that without trying. I can also see a candlelit dinner in your future, with a happy woman and a sleepy baby."

"Can you see what happens after dinner?"

"Probably a bath." She glanced at Yves, laying in his father's arm gazing up at Papa's chin.

"That sounds like fun."

"I meant for Yves. Although, I suppose I could accommodate you as well."

"And you won't even have to bring in the bath toys."

"No, just one bath toy."

"Is it bigger than a Betazoid?"

"Just the same size, actually."

~^~^~^~^~

After Deanna's birthday party my little 'family' returned to the quarters we'd made our home away from home. Lora scurried off into her room, probably eager to return to the terminal for another peek at a wealth of interesting information in the station's computer system. She had picked up on the fine art of questioning the computer for everything from the average life span of a human to Terran customs regarding children. No doubt that had led to her questioning 'Uncle Luc' about his arrangements and comparing them to ours.

Beverly silently replicated dinner. I tried to help, but I got the feeling I was being deliberately ignored. She brushed past me, dodging at the last minute to avoid a collision as she carried plates.

"Verly."

She put down the two plates and tucked stray hair behind her ear. "What?"

"Hold on a second. Just hold on -- Beverly," I added, putting more urgency into it. She'd turned away from me toward the replicator but stopped in mid-turn.

"Yes?"

"Stop freezing my balls off and be honest with me. When we get back to the *Venture* will I still have a CMO?"

Her eyes darted about. "Tom, can we talk about this later?"

"No. You never do later. I love you, but since this morning it feels like it bounces off you and gets thrown back at me. I don't want to lose you but I don't want you to stay if it's going to make you miserable this way."

She laughed, cutting it off and tossing her head, eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Miserable. She hates me. She almost killed you."

"She wasn't doing it herself."

"She hasn't shown any sign of returning to whatever frame of mind she was in, but that doesn't mean it won't happen," Beverly insisted, continuing in that soft-but-intense parental whisper we'd been using. "What if next time she slits both our throats in our sleep? What if -- Tom, what happened to your suspicious nature? Where's that skepticism I used to call paranoia?"

I couldn't explain it, but I knew Lora wouldn't do that with the same rock-solid certainty that I knew I would never love anyone as much as I loved Beverly. "She won't. She's got it good and she knows it."

"She won't tell us where she's been living. She won't talk about her mother."

"I wouldn't talk about mine either, after I found her dead. You'll have to give it a few years for the shock to wear off and the memories of the person to return."

Beverly gave me a stunned look rivaling the one she'd had in the restaurant when I'd mentioned the Section for the first time.

"What happened to the doctor who insisted on treating that Rejovin who tried to kill my first officer?" I asked. The followup punch.

"I didn't ask the Rejovin to take up residence in our quarters."

"She's not a killer, Verly. I'm not going to let her be one, either. She's just a little girl, with no weapons and no access to any."

"Except for whatever the person who helped her move ventilation grills provides her with. Maybe next time it'll be something deadlier than a short blade. An energy weapon, a phaser, or one of those little shockers agents seem to carry."

"What do you want me to do, then? Send her to one of my sisters? What?"

We stared at each other for a bit. From the second bedroom, I heard Lora's faint humming.

"Whether she's my daughter or not, she's a member of my family," I whispered. "Genetically she's a Glendenning. I'm not going to abandon her. I'm not going to abandon you, either, damn it -- I'll work as hard as I have to and I'll rework our living arrangements however you want them, whatever it takes. You can have space, or time, or signed and notarized contracts that I won't let her hurt anyone, or that I'll give up my job if things get too tough, or -- "

"Stop it," she mumbled. "You're not helping. It's just not going to work, Tom. I thought I could do this -- I honestly intended to make it work come hell or high water. But I don't think I have what it takes."

The numbness hit. I knew I'd be angry and in pain later, but I was frozen inside. This was what I'd been afraid of all along. What I knew would happen, regardless of when I told her, or what I said.

"Lora," I called. "Come on, Chip. We're going to dinner."

She loped out eagerly and skidded to a stop as she saw the look on my face, her mouth closing again. I gestured at the door and herded her along.

"What about Beverly?"

"She's got some things to take care of. It's just you and me tonight, okay?" I glanced at Verly as we reached the door. She stood there, stunned and disbelieving. I waited a moment for Lora to get outside and around the corner. "I love you, Verly. I know you have what it takes. But unless you believe that, it's not going to happen."

Lora grabbed my hand as the door shut behind me. "Can I have a ride?"

"I shouldn't have let you start that," I exclaimed, cupping my hand and bending at the knees. She stuck her toe in my fingers and swung up. She wasn't big enough to be any real burden; I'd carried backpacks three times heavier.

"But it's fun," she said, her words tickling my ear. "Can we have something Klingon for dinner? What's gagh?"

"You've been talking to Ambassador Worf."

"No, Uncle Will said he had some once. He said it was good."

"Yeah, figures. Leave it to Uncle Will."

~^~^~^~^~

The doors opened on the third punch of the annunciator. Deanna went in cautiously. Beverly strode out clutching a bag. "You're leaving?"

"I'm certainly not staying here," Beverly declared, tossing her bag on the floor. She glanced around, searching for stray items.

"Would you like to talk -- "

The annunciator interrupted. Beverly stared at her as if asking who it was; Deanna shrugged. "Come in," Beverly called.

A man of about Tom's height and build entered the room. He had blond hair, a thin face and dark brown eyes. Deanna turned to her friend in hopes of identification, but Beverly was more confused than she.

"Are you looking for Tom?" Beverly asked.

"As a matter of fact, I was, but I see he isn't in. You must be. . . Beverly?" He glanced from her to Deanna. "He did say beautiful redhead."

"Tom went elsewhere with his daughter. You might want to try a comm link first."

The man lost his pleasant smile. "Sounds like trouble in paradise. That's too bad -- I know he'll miss you."

Beverly's ire faded, to be replaced by a wariness Deanna seconded. "How do you know Tom, if I may?" Beverly asked coolly.

"I'm a good friend."

"Really."

"I came to deliver a message before I left the station. I can't take the time to locate him, and there are. . . considerations that prevent my using the public comm channels. Regardless of what you intend to do, I'm sure you'll see him at least once before going your way -- when you do, tell him that Thoth wishes him well and that his services will no longer be required. He is not to attempt contact. He won't be seeing me, or any of our other good friends, again. And if he does see them, he doesn't. He'll understand."

Deanna stared open-mouthed at Beverly. The flush had vanished, leaving the doctor's face paler than usual. Clearing her throat, Beverly took a step toward the man. "This has something to do with the covert ops group he's been in?"

"He's not in it any more."

"Why?"

The man smiled. For a few seconds, Deanna was reminded acutely of Tom. "He's never been what you could call a full-time agent. Call it a staff reduction. A layoff. Retirement. He leaves us alone, we'll leave him alone. That's fair, isn't it?"

"Doesn't he know too much?"

"He knows nothing. You know even less," the man murmured, pivoting on his left heel. He strode out into the hall.

"Wait," Beverly cried, dashing after him. But as she and Deanna reopened the door, which moved too slowly, they saw only empty corridor. He'd vanished.

"You've never seen him before?"

"The gall," Beverly spat. "Tom put him up to this. Whoever he is, Tom had to have sent him!"

"I don't think so. He wasn't lying, or at least he believed every word of what he said."

"I'm going to miss my transport." Beverly ran back for her bag, came out with it slung over her shoulder, and hurried off. Deanna ran after her.

"You aren't going to give Tom the message?"

"You give it to him."

"This is the first hint of something positive, and you're still running away," Deanna exclaimed. She had to run to keep up with Beverly's longer strides and was losing her breath quickly.

"Why are you so concerned about my relationship with him? It's none of your business, Dee! What happened to keeping things to yourself and staying out of it?"

"I stayed out of your life for years and knew you cried sometimes, just out of sheer loneliness, especially after Wesley left. I've said nothing because I taught myself to say nothing -- I have my own non-interference directive. And yes, I'm breaking it now. You're afraid of taking a risk with Tom. You're afraid that he's lying to you. You're afraid of that girl. Starfleet is nothing -- you're afraid of that unknown called a personal life. Are you forgetting, I'm the one you called every time you suffered a doubt during the last twelve months?"

Beverly threw the bag against the nearest wall and whirled around, almost running into her. She glared, her right hand clenching and unclenching.

"You're afraid, and you're running out on someone you spent an entire year with. Someone you love. Is it because the girl doesn't need as much help as we thought? You can't bury yourself in something resembling work, so you're leaving? Or is it just that there's some unknown component to Tom's life that you have no influence over?"

"Who are you?" Beverly whispered. "What happened to my friend Deanna who only had my best interests at heart? Why are you so worried that I'll leave him, when you know what he is and what people like him are capable of?"

Deanna had no answer for that. Her heart trembled in her chest; she fought to keep her breathing slow and inaudible. Distant laughter echoed down the corridors, but no one came into view. Just a trick of the station, of bare metal walls and the odd ways sound could carry.

"I wanted to kick you for never doing anything about how you felt about Jean-Luc," she said at last.

Beverly laughed incredulously, tossing her head. "What the hell does that have to do with this?"

"You never knew how much it hurt him. I did. I know how much this is hurting Tom. I know how much this will hurt you, and the pain your anger is covering. I'm tired of it, Bev, I'm so sick and tired of watching my friends do this, over and over -- I'm so tired of having to fight it, keeping my mouth shut and watching everyone in pain because they can't communicate. I do know better but after the last mission, and the baby, and the cancer, and the injections. . . . When is it my turn to run from the pain?"

It was enough to make her waver. She rarely ran from a direct challenge, and the implication that she was got her attention and forced her to see it as such. Beverly glanced at the floor, on the verge of tears, and massaged her left hand between her fingertips. Then she bit her lip -- Deanna sensed the brief pain -- snatched up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and marched back to her quarters. Deanna followed her and wished she could indulge in sobbing herself to sleep and forgetting the past few weeks.

How good it would feel, to rise in the morning and find that she'd never heard of the Briar Patch, the Ba'ku, or Section 31. How perfectly wonderful it would be to have nothing but a baby to worry about.

~^~^~^~^~

I hesitated to take Lora into the Klingon restaurant at the last minute. I'd fought with Klingons before, and the place was packed -- I didn't think anything would happen but why chance it with Lora around?

"You know, why don't we go down to the Bajoran place? Looks like they're awful busy here. I'll starve and dry up and blow away waiting for food."

She looked up at me and shrugged. "I've never had Bajoran food."

"Uh -- " Well, that might have been because Bejal hadn't been on Bajor, but it still caught me off guard. "Your mother never gave you any?"

"Of course not, she's not Bajoran," Lora said in a 'silly-you' tone of voice.

All the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Assumptions can kill us. I'd assumed Bejal had had something to do with her even though I knew the kid had to be a lab project. Bad boy, Tom Glendenning.

My comm badge chirped before I could think about asking a leading question. "Crusher to Glendenning."

She still sounded frosty. I put on a professional demeanor. "Glendenning here, what's up?"

"Someone came by to see you. He said Thoth wishes you well and that your services will no longer be required. He said you won't be seeing him, or any of your other good friends, again. And if you do see them, you don't."

I barely heard anything after she mentioned the word 'Thoth.' It felt like someone had just stabbed me in the frontal lobe. Putting a hand to my head, I blinked and shook it off -- and suddenly it all flooded back into my memory. Everything, from things I was supposed to forget to things I was supposed to remember from the last conversation with my contact. Including Lora's origins. Including the key to freedom for all of us.

"Thank you, very much," I managed. "I need to talk to you. Where are you?"

"Where you left me. Deanna's here."

"Good. Keep her there. I'll be back in a minute. Glendenning out."

Lora made a frustrated noise.

"Chip, we're going back for dinner in quarters. But I'll replicate Klingon for you, how's that?"

I called people on the way back, one by one. By the time we got back to our door in the habitat ring, the last of them was coming from the other direction -- Nechayev, looking dire. I waved her inside silently.

The assembled could've been attending a wake. Riker fell silent as I entered the room. Turning to Lora, I said, "Seshat, go to your room and sit on the bed." Ezri gasped as the girl's face lost expression and a little color. Lora sleepwalked to her bedroom. No sound came out. She'd done as I'd asked, nothing more, and she wouldn't remember a thing she might overhear.

"Engramatic disassociation," I said to those gathered. Picard, Riker, Troi, Bashir, Dax, and the admiral. And Verly. She looked terrified. Actually, she looked furious, but like most humans, she used anger to cover a multitude of other things. Deanna looked terrible. I allowed a single stab of guilt at doing this when she was obviously exhausted, but it couldn't be helped.

Bashir leaped up from his chair. "Really?"

"I can see you've heard of it."

"I was accused of it, by Luther Sloan. During the war. He accused me of being a spy."

"So you've said."

"He wanted to recruit me afterward."

"Of course. That was his goal all along. He knew you weren't a spy."

Nechayev seethed silently in the back of the room. That wasn't like her. Picard glanced her way a couple times, evidently suspicious of her silence. I finally knew answers to the questions I'd been asking since the Briar Patch, and I didn't like them any more than I'd guessed I might.

"I called you all here because we've met and discussed plans to counter the Section, and I have new information for you."

"What kind of information?" Ezri asked.

"That it won't work. They've been on to you from the beginning."

"How?" Picard made the word a bullet, a knife, a blunt object to the head.

"You told the admiral."

Nechayev strode forward. "Ridiculous," she hissed. "Don't make such groundless accusations. Especially when it's so obvious who the real leak is. Everyone here knows what you are."

"Not everyone here knows what you are, however. I do. That's why you're afraid of me. That's why you didn't want me in on this little scheme. You've sold out the plan to the enemy, Admiral, and I don't appreciate that. Thing is, you've not counted on my having a few more good cards in my hand than you. I know what you've been instructed to do, and it won't be necessary. The plan's been cancelled. You can leave now."

"How dare -- "

"Would you like me to go into more detail? Or, alternately, I could make a call or two and give out some entirely different information, and within the week someone else will be fleet admiral."

"You're bluffing," she exclaimed, giving a death's head grin. "You don't know anything about me. There's nothing *to* know -- "

"Risa. Third bungalow down. You beamed in, he beamed in half an hour or so later, and you made him a drink, one of those colorful ones in a tall glass, and the two of you sat in the front room talking about the state of affairs in -- "

She almost ran out of the room. Almost. She wanted to, but kept herself to a walk and ended up looking like she had a shuttle stuck up her rump.

"Now we know why she was afraid of you," Deanna said quietly into the silence. "Should we also be afraid?"

"No. Now that you've provided the release word for the block on my memory, there's nothing left to fear."

"They blocked your memory," Beverly murmured.

"Yes. In a nutshell, I've told you the truth, but not all of it. Some of my suppositions about Lora were true. She's not mine."

"How do you know?" Bashir asked.

"Her father told me so. He's my contact. He's also my brother."

"You said you didn't have a brother," Beverly exclaimed.

"Half brother. Lora's his -- her mother used to be a friend of mine, that's true, but she was never anything more to me. Cal doesn't want to deal with raising Lora, so he's rigged an exchange with me. In return for my agreeing to adopt Lora, he's cutting my chains so I won't have to deal with the Section any more. Dad had a few friends who're willing to go along with that. I'm out, Lora's out of Cal's hair, and I've just saved all of you from a series of fatal accidents by letting you know that the Section's on to what you're planning and it's a pointless exercise. And Jean-Luc, before you give us another pep talk on how the possibility of failing in the struggle shouldn't keep us from trying, it's not just pointless because they know about it. The Section is dying."

"Dying," Riker echoed.

"Think about it. That whole mess in the Briar Patch? The last desperate gasp of a few agents who didn't think the Section should end. The Section wasn't meant to be an ongoing project. It served a purpose for a while but time's up. The Federation has come a long way -- we survived the Dominion War, we're holding our own against the Borg. *Voyager* has sent back reports of the Delta Quadrant, we have access to the Gamma Quadrant and a base is being put in there -- the great unknown isn't so unknown any more. There's a treaty with the Romulans. The only dubious relations are with the Randra Alliance." I paced like a professor parading before students spouting rhetoric. "We're well on the way to better things. The Section's being phased out. Recruitment's been suffering anyway."

"And you couldn't tell us all this before?" Picard still sounded belligerent and I couldn't blame him.

"No. I didn't remember a lot of things before. I wasn't meant to. With telepaths from all over wandering the universe, you can't let secrets sit in someone's active memory. Engramatic disassociation is our way of combating security leaks. You can't even torture the information out of someone who's set up correctly."

"And you were," Picard continued, the underlying hostility quite audible.

"I'm not a different person than I was. I've never liked the Section and the story I told you was true. You don't know the whole story about my father, however -- he didn't die. Thomas Glendenning died, but the man became someone else, took on a different identity for the sake of anonymity. He had to. If he didn't, the Section would have removed the people keeping him from doing so -- I would never have been born."

"How do we know this isn't another deception?" Bashir exclaimed hotly. "And just why was it necessary for them to instruct the girl to stab you?"

"Doctor, please, settle down. That was a message for me, as I said before. I know now that it was their way of telling me what will happen if I reveal certain things. Nothing that affects any of you -- certain people in the Section would rather go their own way without anyone knowing who they were. That's all." Actually, it was their way of telling me they were in control -- there was no real pattern to Lora's behaviors other than a demonstration of how much of a puppet she could be to them. That, more than anything else, drove me to go along with the script Cal had set for me back on the starbase. I had to buy time to find a way to deprogram her. I had to find a way to combat engramatic disassociation. It could be the key to everything Jean-Luc wanted to do. For now, however, I had to be Section, just this last gasp of fabricated excuses. Deanna's eyes glittered with such anguish that I wanted to recant and tell the truth. I hoped she understood what I was doing.

"Wait a minute," Beverly exclaimed, leaning on the back of the couch. "Your father's alive?"

"As far as I know. Cal hints at it. I've never met him."

"You seemed to regret that you never knew him," Jean-Luc said. "You've never tried?"

I shook my head. "He's a dangerous man. Not the kind you go looking for."

"Then what he told me. . . ."

"Was engineered to save your life. Keep you from prying into things that would get you killed."

I watched them deep in thought. I watched Deanna out of the corner of an eye, especially. I knew, as I watched, that we were all being observed -- I knew I had to hang on to my story to the very last.

They asked more questions, I answered them, and in the end, I saw them leave one by one, disgruntled but accepting of the idea that the plans we'd been making and the ideas we'd had were all unnecessary. In the end only Beverly remained.

She fidgeted, paced, fidgeted, and came to me at long last, meeting me in the middle of the room.

"You're really out?"

"Yes."

"They won't ask you to do anything, ever again."

"That's the arrangement. My silence, my freedom." I looked her in the eye and attempted a reassuring smile. "It's too good to be true, one would think. It's an equitable deal. Lora will be my daughter now. She'll have a home, and a chance at a better life, and I'll have the chance to be free -- they'll probably be watching, but such is life. It's better than the alternatives. And I hope it means you'll reconsider and stay?"

"We'll talk about it later. After dinner."

~^~^~^~^~

Deanna lay in the darkness listening to her husband and her son breathing.

Somewhere in the night, it happened again. She sensed the arrival of the visitor, felt the cold metal against her neck, just as she had back on the **Enterprise** when the nightmare had begun. She heard nothing. Saw nothing. But he was there, nevertheless.

"You did very well," the voice breathed.

"Well enough to be left alone?"

As before, he didn't answer questions. "Your doctor will find a solution to your problem. Your friend will have a long and happy life. Your son and husband will be fine, and the admiral will have forgotten everything, don't worry."

"You can be certain that I will. Gilbraith."

A low chuckle. "It's too bad you couldn't be recruited, my dear."

"Never."

"Ah, well. Live your life and enjoy your family, Commander. We'll make certain you'll have a Federation to do that in. Sleep well."

He went as silently as he'd come. She didn't sleep. Tumbling through her thoughts were all the lies she'd allowed Tom to tell, the things she had allowed to come to pass, the compromises, the way she'd pushed Beverly -- but Tom did love Beverly, and she was safest with him. If anyone could protect her, Tom could.

The admiral had said that leopards couldn't change their spots. Once Jean-Luc had explained the reference, Deanna saw the fallacy in it. Of course leopards could change -- they could fill in the spaces between, become panthers, black as night and passing unseen and unknown.

She preferred the leopards. The panthers frightened her in their honest blackness. Better Tom's lies with the intent to protect than the panther's dedicated dangerousness and duplicity. Tom had glanced Deanna's way as she'd left with Jean-Luc; he knew she'd sensed his lies. Did he know why she'd assiduously kept her face straight and her mouth shut? She couldn't guess. His relieved and apologetic expression said all that needed to be said for the time being.

Jean-Luc stirred in his sleep, throwing an arm over her, and she debated in circles over whether to tell him everything. He would be furious -- at her, at Tom, and most of all at the Section. It would rekindle his determination to expose and do away with them. That would result in what the panther had promised, if she'd exposed the lies.

Yves began to cry. He needed a diaper change. At her side, Jean-Luc stirred and got up -- he'd lost track of whose turn it was. When he came back he sank down with a sigh and reached for her.

"All right?"

His affection was the only thing that could soothe the nagging doubts and guilt she felt. "Tired, Jean-Fish. I can't sleep."

"Anything I can do?"

"Hold me?"

~^~^~^~^~

The stars were like diamonds. How cliche, he thought, but they were. It was a new moon, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky in all its brilliance.

He heard the footsteps coming down the beach sand. It wouldn't be Kyle again. It might be Calvin, coming to insist that he go inside. Security reasons. This beach, secluded as it was, remained too open.

But it wasn't Calvin. The perfume, roses, told him who it was.

"How are the children?"

"Which ones?" she replied.

"Mine, and ours. All of them."

She cleared her throat. He kept his eyes on the stars.

"Your daughters are doing as well as always. Your son is back on his ship, and his paramour is still with him. They have Lora well in hand."

He remembered his wife's eyes with the usual clarity. Geraint's eyes -- renaming himself Thomas was artifice, he would always be Geraint, the name his mother gave him. Lora should have been Geraint's daughter. Those lovely eyes should have been passed down to her from Rhiannon -- her maternal grandmother should have been his wife, not the woman who stood with him under the Roman night sky on a thin strand of sand, not this stern-faced officer whose blue eyes were probably even now studying him even in the dim light of the quarter moon, hunting for signs of anything of which to be suspicious.

"Calvin, you know, is fine," she continued with her usual practiced affection. "He told me where to find you."

"He's a good boy. Are you disappointed he didn't go to the Academy?"

"Crystal went. That's enough. She's almost due for promotion, did I tell you? She'll be a captain by the end of the year." Such pride for the daughter -- but she could express pride for the child who had a public career. She could tell her peers of her daughter's accomplishments, even though she made it a policy never to reveal exactly who her daughter was. Crystal didn't want even the appearance of favoritism. Another thing to be proud of. Like her mother, Crystal would make it on her own.

"Does Lora remember me?"

She shifted uneasily, her boots scuffing in the sand. "I don't know. I wasn't aware that she should -- you wanted her to forget everything, you said. For her own safety."

"An old man's conceit. I've missed her, the girl was a ray of sunshine in my life."

"She's a pretty thing."

"That's a flip way to talk of your granddaughter, Elena. Had you no feelings for her at all?"

"You gave her to the son you've hardly known instead of letting me care for her," she said bitterly. "Cal taught her to stab him -- what was that for?"

"My son is a paranoid man with no trust in me." The words from the recording Cal had made, of Geraint telling his friends why he hadn't met his own father -- 'he's a dangerous man.' *That was true, once upon a time. Oh, Geraint, what I wouldn't give to have been there for you. . . .*

"So give the child a knife and let her stick it in her uncle's ribs, and it will reassure him?"

"He took her, didn't he? Cal knows he leads a life not conducive to child-rearing. His brother is older, more settled, and he's good with children, you've said."

She sighed. Her silence let the soft whispering of the waves at low tide creep into the conversation.

"What?"

"Tom, do you know what Cal did about the details?"

"He said he would see to it the girl was with Geraint, and that he wouldn't disturb the order of things in doing it. That he'd preserve Geraint's relationships with his friends, and that lovely Dr. Crusher. Are you suggesting he acted inappropriately?"

Another pause. "He did as he said he would."

"Good. Geraint is out of the Section, then, and all's well for Lora. You've sighed again, Elena, what is it? Are you troubled by something?"

"I was thinking about Risa."

"A lovely idea. We should go again soon."

"I was just reminiscing. . . I have far too much to do to get away at the moment. Come inside, Thomas, it's chilly out here, and at -- "

"At my age I shouldn't take chances, blah blah blah. I'm fine. I was star-watching, and thinking about the things I've done out there. Is Kyle still at the house?"

"Cal said he'd gone back to Alaska, under the pretense of being uncomfortable in the balmy Mediterranean climate. Rome isn't to his liking, I suppose."

"I've never understood what he liked about six months of darkness and permafrost, but to each his own. Help me up, dear. I've changed my mind. Especially if you'll make me some of that Turkish coffee."

"At this time of night?"

"I want to look through my old albums. I want to find a picture of Lora as a baby, to send to Geraint. One with Bejal in it."

"That will cause problems. Lora doesn't remember Bejal, she died when the girl was too young to remember. You know the girl will tell him her mother is human."

"Geraint will take care of it."

"What a good older brother he is, cleaning up his little brother's messes like this."

"Sarcasm is unwarranted. Cal made a mistake with Bejal, believing her lies -- he set it to rights when he found out she was trying to manipulate him."

"By killing her and handing the child to some girl he met in the market."

"Clytie is a good girl."

"Was a good girl."

"It was an accident, nothing more."

Elena's firm grip on his arm as she helped him up pinched. She was displeased with this conversation and no doubt thought him infirm, dithering in his old age, forgetting that his son was a killer. She thought he didn't remember the facts. But what good would it do to recount them now? Cal was a Section agent, a better one than Geraint had been, and now Thomas Glendenning had his dream -- one son a starship captain, Rhiannon's son, raised to her high standards as were their four daughters. The other two children had proved to take after their mother as well. Nothing could be done to change the way things were. He could only make sure that Lora, of the beautiful blue eyes that so reminded him of Rhiannon, was raised differently. She would blossom with Geraint where she wouldn't with Cal.

He wished he knew the details of Clytie's death. He knew better than to believe Cal's accounting of it. Lora's mutterings had hinted at more than a simple fall down the stone steps from the house to the beach.

He leaned on Elena, though he didn't have to, fostering the appearance of being elderly -- all he had left to him was appearances. If Cal knew how much his father knew about him. . . . He needed to live as long as he could. Someone had to keep an eye on Cal.

And Elena. He had to watch Elena, as he'd done for so many years -- she didn't know that he could destroy her Starfleet career by simply posting an anonymous package to Command.

Soon, the key players would be in place, and he could play his final hand in this immense poker game he'd made of his life. The cards had stacked up well over the years.

Elena, the queen of spades, whom he'd so long ago marked as someone he'd need to cultivate friendship with and discovered how miserably lonely she was beneath her toughness. Taking advantage of her had been his only marital infidelity, an undertaking geared to benefit the Section that had led to more advantages than he'd initially bargained for.

Calvin, the king of spades. The son Elena had raised almost in secret and brought back to him whenever he happened to be on Earth and in Rome, where they could pretend together that there was some hint of a familial bond between them. He knew Elena viewed him as an advantageous connection but thought she was fooling him into thinking otherwise. Cal probably thought the same; the boy had never been sincere that Thomas could remember. To his relief, Crystal had gone straight Starfleet and spent little time with either her brother or her mother.

Geraint, the joker -- his wild card. He'd tied himself to Beverly and Lora and Thomas had manipulated many others to see Geraint set free, but he could be brought back into play if necessary.

Jean-Luc, unwitting king of hearts in this grand game. Years ago, Thomas had seen in him the stuff of a good captain -- enough daring to go where angels feared to tread, enough caution to look after his ship and crew, enough intelligence to know how to serve both Starfleet politics and moral obligation without appearing to sacrifice one to the other. Cal, lacking his father's years of manipulation and observation of human behavior, believed he'd tricked Picard into believing the Section would end soon. Cal didn't know about the other card, the latest addition to Thomas' hand.

The queen of hearts would tell her king the truth about her role in this. She was a wife and mother, not just a first officer -- her loyalty to Picard ran deeper than anything Cal could understand. Suggesting to Cal that the former counselor would know well enough how to handle her old shipmate Beverly Crusher and manipulate her other friends in the pursuit of their goal had been enough to set events in motion that led to her inclusion. The king and queen of hearts would be more aware, more careful, and primed for future encounters with the king and queen of spades.

It was the best full house Thomas could have hoped for. Some of the best possible cards he could've gotten. Let them all think it was all for the sake of a little girl, the sentimental whimsy of an old man. Let them think that the snafu in the Briar Patch had been a result of a mistakenly-directed call for backup. They would know differently when his final hand was laid out for all to see.

Soon.

"Command calling, for Admiral Nechayev," Cal sang out from the top of the stairs.

"Hush," Elena hissed. "Get down here and help your father."

"Yes, Mumsy."

"Don't call me that!"

Thomas Glendenning nursed the warm feeling inside. He clung to the end of the railing while Elena hurried up the steps and Cal dawdled down. While he waited, he looked up once again at the stars and sang softly.

"He deals the cards as a meditation  
And those he plays never suspect  
He doesn't play for the money he wins  
He don't play for respect

He deals the cards to find the answer  
The sacred geometry of chance  
The hidden law of a probable outcome  
The numbers lead a dance

He may play the jack of diamonds  
He may lay the queen of spades  
He may conceal a king in his hand  
While the memory of it fades

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier  
I know that the clubs are weapons of war  
I know that diamonds mean money for this art  
But that's not the shape of my heart. . . ."

~^~^~^~^~

 

"Play me a song, Daddy."

It's amazing how that can give you such a high -- she probably knew by now that calling me 'daddy' could get her just about anything. Since returning from Deep Space Nine, we had busily remodeled to include a bedroom for her and she'd settled in across the living room from where Bev and I slept.

"What song?" I asked, as Beverly came out of the bedroom. The door sighed shut with a final, barely-audible click. As a concession to her lingering doubts, I'd had an automatic lock installed on our bedroom door that selectively barred Lora from entering without one of us. One of several compromises I had to grudgingly admit might be wise. Verly smiled and joined us on the couch, plucking a guitar string with a fingernail.

"How about something with a beat you can dance to?" she suggested.

"Oh, you do think I'm a regular maestro, don't you? How about something that's easy to play that I can sing to?"

"Do you know any of those?"

Lora giggled at our mild teasing tone. "Play me a song about family, Daddy."

I studied her earnest upturned face, glanced at Beverly, and plucked a few soft notes. "How about I play you a song my dad used to play, a long time ago before I was born?"

"If he played it before you were born how do you know it?"

"My mother recorded it. I have recordings of her music, too, and of her dancing. A lot of them. I'll let you see them if you want."

"What's the song about?" she asked, watching my fingers as they began the opening bars to the accompaniment.

"It's about family. It's about how much a person can care for another, and how important the ones you love are. Sound like something you want to hear?"

Lora nodded eagerly and sat up on her knees, hands between them. I didn't stop playing to chide her for having her feet on the sofa; there was plenty of time for discipline later. I started the song over again, pitching my voice low and meeting Beverly's eyes.

"If I could forget to breathe  
Forget to breathe entirely  
It's happened down through history

And surely I could lose my head  
Some night I could drink too much  
And take it off and just forget

And I will learn all languages  
I will speak in every tongue  
From highnesses to savages  
And to all beneath the sun

Someday I will paint the sky  
I will build a ladder, make a roller  
That could reach that high

And nothing that I do will pass  
Everything I will and make and feel  
And dream and know will last

I will rid the world of sorrow  
Stop all wars and pain  
I will tell you of tomorrow  
As I rule the wind and rain

I can do it all it's true  
But only when I've done all that  
Oh will I turn away from you  
Only when I've done all that  
Oh will I turn away from you."

"I don't get it," Lora said when I'd finished playing.

"It's a roundabout way of telling someone how you feel," I began, turning away from my moist-eyed Verly reluctantly. "See, all those things are impossible -- you can't forget to breathe, you can't take off your head, you can't paint the sky -- by myself, I can't do any of the things in the song. It means I won't ever leave unless I do all those impossible things, which means I won't leave at all."

Lora wrinkled her nose. "I still don't get it. Nothing's impossible."

"Oh? Who told you that?"

"Uncle Luc. Can I go visit Auntie Lwaxana? She said she'd show me a mud bath."

"It's almost dinner time," Beverly said. "We'll all go after dinner, how's that?"

Lora stared at her, and I tensed in preparation to deal with another squabble. But Lora pulled one of her fast tangents on us. "Are you going to stay with us forever?"

I almost embarked on a long explanation of relationship dynamics but opted for something much simpler and optimistic. "Of course she is."

"Are we a family?"

Resting my hands on the guitar, I attempted jovial nonchalance. "I think so."

"You said that sometimes when a parent dies, the other one will pick someone else to be a step-parent. Is that why you live with Beverly?"

Her full-of-blanks memory certainly didn't help me with the explanations. I suspected that her struggles with defining the nature of my relationship with Beverly wouldn't be over any time soon. She'd been picking away at the definition of family, approaching the subject from different angles, since that initial fight on Deep Space Nine.

"I live with Beverly because we love each other and we decided to stay together because of that. She can be your step-parent, or she can be your friend. That's up to the two of you. Remember what the counselor said about that?"

"She isn't my Momma," Lora said. She frowned and ran her hand down the bottom of the guitar in my lap.

"You can call me Beverly, then," Beverly said smoothly. "It's all right if you want to do that."

"Let's get dinner. I'm so hungry I could eat a sofa cushion," I exclaimed, standing and putting the guitar on the couch where I'd been sitting.

Lora leaped down. "I'm so hungry I could eat a sofa!"

"I'm so hungry, I could eat *two* sofas!"

We got up to six sofas and three armchairs before Beverly lost her patience with the game and stood with crossed arms behind her chair, glowering at us over the set table. "Looks like the game's over. Verly's mad."

Lora giggled. "Yeah, Momverly doesn't like sofas for dinner, I guess."

"No, not really." Beverly managed to not fall down in a faint; she dropped into her chair and picked up her fork. While Lora dug into a pile of peas and experimented with how many she could get on each tine of the fork, I grinned and nudged Verly under the table.

She looked askance at me, then gave me a maliciously-amused look that should have warned me but didn't. I stifled a yelp as the toe of her boot glanced off my ankle. I nudged again, then realized I'd overshot my target -- rather than poking her in the thigh, I'd been jabbing her in the posterior.

Then I laughed. She took a swipe at me without real intent, her hand glancing off my shoulder, and laughed too. "You're really funny, you know that?" I told Lora to cover for it. "No one eats sofas for dinner!"

She laughed with us. I had the feeling that we non-breathing, sky-painting, head-removing folks -- Momverly, Uncle Luc, Aunt D, Uncle Will, Uncle Data, and the rest of us -- would be just fine. We'd get by in this imperfect universe because we'd stick together. And that, in the end, is what family really is. Blood may be thicker than water, but love's stickier than anything.

And for that, I really would do anything.

Even eat a sofa.

 

~^~^~ Finis ~^~^~

_Tom's songs are both written by John Gorka. "The Shape of My Heart" is by Sting._

  



End file.
